


Return

by winterironspiderling



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Anxious Tony Stark, Bottom Peter Parker, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Insecure Tony Stark, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, POV Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Reunions, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Timelines, Top Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:28:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23210236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterironspiderling/pseuds/winterironspiderling
Summary: After Thanos erases half of the universe, Tony has to do everything in his power to get Peter back. He takes Rhodey's suggestion of going back in time to kill Thanos while he’s young.When Tony returns from the mission, he realizes more things changed besides the Snap never having happened, and he's the only who remembers the original timeline.He has to get Peter to fall in love with him all over again.//Moodboard
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 168
Kudos: 262





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this story, time travel works differently than it was portrayed in Endgame--changing the past does change the future and rewrite history. I'm obv not a scientist so maybe this makes sense, maybe it doesn't. The main point of this story is that Endgame can fuck off. There will be some angst with Tony's anxiety and PTSD type stuff, but nothing too dramatic or heavy. It's almost like that movie the Vow, but with time travel and superheroes (i.e. a romantic comedy-slash-drama, but with some angsty undertones). ;)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony loses Peter and tries to think of a way to get him back.

Watching Peter Parker stumble and fall toward him, crying out for help while he turned to dust wasn’t something Tony ever imagined would happen. He’d pictured several futures for himself ever since he ended up in a cave with a battery strapped to his chest—most of them involving dying—and after New York, his imagination ran even further amok. It had occurred to Tony that Peter might die which is why he never wanted him to follow him up to space in the first place, but being reduced to dust wasn’t exactly what Tony’d had in mind for the boy. Now that it had happened, Tony’s only goal was fixing it.

Dr. Strange had told Tony about their terrible odds where beating Thanos was concerned, but that didn’t deter him. So, the doctor had given up the Time Stone and disappeared. Tony had done more with less. He could find a way to reverse what Thanos had done without some rock he hadn’t even known existed until recently.

Whether the Avengers won or lost the fight against the big, purple fuck, Tony had figured it would come at great cost. He hadn’t realized just what that cost was until he’d lost Peter. A broken suit and being trapped in outer space were the least of his worries. Peter was gone. Dead, erased, dust. The specifics weren’t very important to Tony. All he knew was that he was covered in ashes and bleeding profusely from his chest. What else was new?

The kid he’d recruited at 14 to help him fight his own friends, the one who’d wormed his way into a broken, old man’s heart, and who’d only just gotten Tony to admit his feelings. A lot of good it had done because Tony had told Peter he loved him back just in time to lose him. Just typical. Tony had his regrets, but he couldn’t feel too guilty about any of it since Peter loved him. Whether it was right or wrong to bring a teenager into such a big fight was an old worry. Right or wrong wasn’t the issue anymore. Tony just knew he had to fix it, or at least change it, or improve the outcome. Whether it meant dying himself, or fucking up the timeline, or pissing off the rest of the Avengers, he didn’t care.

Regardless of what Strange had to say about anything, Tony now knew that time travel existed, or at least that time-altering dynamics did. All that told Tony was that whether he had access to the Time Stone, or not, it was possible to do something because the very fabric of the universe allowed it. He only had to tap into a bit of his genius, and combined with some quantum physics, he might have a chance at getting everything he’d lost back. Peter.

  
Okay, so maybe being trapped in outer space was more of a concern than he’d initially thought. Nebula wasn’t so bad. If he was going to be trapped with anyone, he was glad it was with someone who had a brain, even if it was full of mean thoughts.

When Tony left one last message in his destroyed helmet, he addressed it to Peter, although he knew that the boy would never get to hear it unless the rest of the Avengers figured out a solution to the Snap without him. He doubted that even though he didn’t want to.

_When I drift off, I’ll think of you._

Meeting Captain Marvel and making a grand entrance on his own lawn might’ve made him smile once, but he didn’t have any smiles left to give. He had been on the verge of death in a floating piece of scrap metal, starved for water, food, and air. He’d been prepared to quietly slip away into death. Not that he’d given up, just that there was no fight left. Nothing he could do except wait to die and hope that some sort of afterlife might reunite him with Peter, but maybe the Snap had erased everyone’s existence so completely that they wouldn’t qualify for any sort of afterlife since they’d technically never lived.

Too much to think about when he was dehydrated and dying.

His first words when he reunited with the team—some friends, some more like family, some nothing—were, “I lost the kid”. Everyone knew who he meant, but only a couple of his welcoming party knew what it meant.

His return felt more anticlimactic than he’d imagined it being since the only ones there to receive him were a broken crowd of Avengers, and they were still the losers of the fight.

Being stuck in space, and then being stuck in bed wasn’t ideal for achieving his goal. He needed to get back in the lab, start working on something, anything. He needed to upgrade E.D.I.T.H. first of all, repair his suit, create another one for Peter, and get F.R.I.D.A.Y. back online. Also try and get Karen back for Peter because he’d want her when he returned…

Tony wasn’t in any physical pain anymore. His anguish was mental. He couldn’t figure out what to do first or at all. His priorities were scrambled and skewed within his brain.

Tracking down Thanos to steal back the Stones was a dead end which Tony might’ve anticipated if he hadn’t been bed ridden and excluded from the plan. If he could somehow manage to fix what had happened whether it meant time travel with the Time Stone or without it—after the Avengers were too late to find Thanos before he destroyed the gauntlet, he could at least be sure he’d be doing it without it. That was somewhat comforting since it was one less variable in the equation. Plus, Thanos was dead which made it slightly easier to breathe.

After he put some weight back on and settled everything around the compound, his priorities became clearer. He had no leads to work with. His delirious and desperate mind had cited time travel as an option, but he had nothing else to supplement the grandiose idea. Time travel how? Where? When? To do what? When Strange had said there was only one future where they won, what did that mean for the past, and what would winning look like? If they somehow got a second shot at fighting Thanos, how would they know they’d won? Tony felt sick when he wondered if this was what Strange had meant—maybe the universe remaining halved and Thanos being dead was the win. Tony refused to believe it.

Before Tony could even think about logistics like how far back he had to go—how old was Thanos, anyway?—he had to develop a suit suitable for time and space travel and with an AI that could function anywhere anytime. He’d been able to fight Thanos without F.R.I.D.A.Y., but it hadn’t been ideal.

He didn’t know the complete parameters of the potential suit design. Obviously, he needed to be able to breathe in different atmospheres because during any given time in Thanos’ world-conquering past, he was on planets that weren’t Earth. He was going to have to build the mack daddy of suits. That would take…at least a month, and that was without sleeping. Tony didn’t like putting more distance in between him and his goal of getting Peter back, but it was necessary. If he was going to do it, he had to do it right, and if he got killed, nobody would be able to finish his work, so despite how much it pissed him off, he had to take precautions and be careful.

If people had thought he was a workaholic before, a shut-in who never left his lab, they hadn’t seen anything yet. Tony didn’t leave his workspace for anything.

The number of Marks for Iron Man suits skyrocketed into the hundreds. He worked on just as many for Peter which earned him nothing but sympathetic looks from Happy, Rhodey, and Pepper. They didn’t dare tell him he was wasting his time, though. They would’ve been wasting their breath.

When Scott Lang showed up at the compound, Tony didn’t even bother coming up to see what all the fuss was about. It was Rhodey who came down to him to explain that Scott had useful information for the team.

Bingo.

Tony’s first lead.

Rhodey gave Tony his second lead when he made a joke about wrapping a cord around baby Thanos’ neck.

The rest of the team was quick to chide Rhodey, but Tony knew what a solved equation looked like when he saw it. It would be perfect. He could roast that shriveled grape of a creature into next week before he even left the maternity ward—not only would he cancel out the Snap, but no planet, or world, or person would ever be conquered by the monster. Plus, he would be easier to kill when he wasn’t so large.

Although it seemed to be the solution for everything wrong in the world, it presented a dilemma to Tony which made him think on it some more. If he could somehow get time travel to work, and if he went back and killed Thanos, depending on when he did it, the outcomes would look drastically different. As far as he could theorize.

If he went back in time to when he’d been stealing back the gauntlet with Peter and the Guardians at his side, they could win there, but if it hadn’t worked then, Tony didn’t see what good returning to that moment would do. Strange came to his mind again. He was getting tired of thinking about the guy. The man had said only there was only one way to win the war, so wasn’t it pointless to go back and retry things they’d already done?

Even Tony felt confused. He was too close to the project, and he could sense a breakthrough, but every question he answered, and every theory he cooked up was just met with more questions, and more possibilities of failure.

Tony considered going back in time just enough to warn Thor about the impending attack on his ship, but if Thor, Loki, and Hulk hadn’t been enough to thwart Thanos, then he didn’t think warning them would do much good.

His head was starting to feel the way Strange had looked when he’d gone all squirrelly on Titan while he imagined all the possible futures.

Tony would have to pick a time and place that was definite, and it was clear that he was going to have to do it before Thanos got too big or retrieved any of the Stones. Which only meant one thing because trying to travel to any other point in time along Thanos' life was too difficult to nail down. Thor was over a thousand years old, so why not this asshole? Oh yeah, what was Thanos up to in 1409, 1777, 1965? He could’ve been fucking anywhere. Probably creating the Black Plague or just casually murdering. Both?

Maybe it was the desperation and his debilitating migraines more than critical thinking, but Tony eventually came to the conclusion that Rhodey’s joke had been the complete answer, not just a lead. He would go back and kill Thanos when he was a baby.

For Tony to learn the most important things about Thanos, namely his birthday and exact birthplace, he had to rely on Thor, and it was lucky that the god had drunk himself into delirium because he gave up everything he knew without even caring to ask why or spill the beans that Tony had been asking anything at all.

It didn’t sit well with him that going back so far in the timeline meant a much greater deal of history changing drastically. If he had to go back hundreds of years to stop Thanos, then the ripple effect of that change would affect hundreds of years of history. If his starting point was 2018 in the basement of Avengers Compound, and his ending point was Titan one thousand years ago, it was possible that he would cut off the entire timeline, not just alter it. If that happened, there would be no basement to return to, and he would cease to exist. That was a problem.

If he somehow managed to kill Thanos and travel back to 2018, it would also be possible that everyone who’d been snapped away would be back and that would be the only change. Tony liked that idea best.

His mind swirled with possibilities. Creating doubles of people if the timelines merged. Some people never existing in the first place. Stopping Thanos only for something worse to take his place. Stopping Thanos as a child, but it having no bearing on the future.

What ended up fully convincing him to go it alone and to stick with the plan of attacking the genocidal maniac while he was fresh out of the womb was that if the plan worked, not only would the Snap be avoided, but every terrible thing Thanos had ever done would’ve never happened. Half the universe would come back to life, and the thousands that Thanos had killed even before that would be alive as well.

There was always the failsafe that if time travelling worked the way he thought it would, if he fucked it up, he could just keep travelling to different points in time and trying again until something stuck.

Tony made a big spectacle of explaining why time travel wouldn’t work regardless of what Lang thought he knew to keep them off his trail. Tony threw the man’s Back to the Future references back in his face as if that wasn’t exactly right. All the while, he was formulating his own plan. Even Bruce took his carefully cited references and theories and ran with them in another direction. Tony almost felt bad for duping his friends, but he wanted to do this alone.

If there was a chance that the mission could go sideways, or that an altered timeline could do damage, he didn’t want to be stopped. Maybe he should’ve learned from his mistake with Ultron and sneaking around the team’s back, but oh well. He didn’t want his plan to fail and have to return to the present day, humiliated. And if it did work, Tony didn’t want to think about anything beyond that. It had to work. End of story.

Tony had run all the data a million times, and without all the variables, it was impossible to nail it down for sure, but the odds of his success were better than Strange’s. That was all he could ask for. If Peter got to be alive in any capacity, Tony would take it. It would just have to be okay that Tony might not get to be alive with him if he didn’t make it, or if changing the timeline erased him from existence, or if some alternate Tony with no memory of this was the one to make it out of this shitstorm.

Tony left a virtual message for the team before he left just in case he didn’t succeed or return, or both.

Going back nearly a thousand years into the past might’ve been cool under different circumstances, but to Tony it was nightmarish. He’d taken several calculated risks even attempting this plan, and several other incalculable risks, but when he approached the young Titan, prepared to strike, it really hit him how fucked up the plan was. If he killed Thanos, and the course of the world changed immeasurably, Tony wasn’t even sure if his time-travelling apparatus would be ready to receive him back in his present.

Those were the thoughts that plagued Tony’s mind when he approached the child, not the questionable morality of the whole thing. He was about to kill a kid, but Thanos had killed several. Stalin’s quote about one death being a tragedy and millions being a statistic came to mind. Tony had killed before and didn’t lose sleep over it—that was a lie, he lost lots of sleep, but it didn’t make him regret it.

As far as Tony was concerned, Thanos was toast just for murdering Peter. Avenging trillions was a bonus.

After it was done, Tony took a moment to feel any satisfaction that might be coming his way, but all he could feel was a strange buzzing throughout his entire body. His suit wasn’t electrocuting him according to F.R.I.D.A.Y., and the time device affixed to him wasn’t actively transporting him back to where and when he’d come from. It felt simultaneously spiritual and physical, like his entire soul was being tugged in every direction.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony wakes up.

“Tony, took you long enough,” Pepper chided.

Tony opened his eyes, expecting to see a purple corpse in front of him, or maybe a mob of angry Thanos worshippers.

Instead he was standing in what looked like the penthouse of Avengers Tower.

He had a vague memory of flying in on his landing pad, and when he searched for the rest of the memory, he recalled Pepper asking him to go get pizza? He had the box in his hands. _But? What the hell?_

“Why are you still wearing the suit?”

Tony looked down at something that resembled one of the earlier Marks and wasn’t even close to the suit he’d left the compound in. What the fucking hell? The time-travelling device was gone too. _Uh oh._

“Sir? Are you all right?”

Tony yelped at the sound of J.A.R.V.I.S’ concerned tone. He hadn’t heard that voice in gosh, ten years?

“No, no, no, no,” Tony mumbled. “This—this, it’s wrong.”

His head felt like it was being blended into a chlorophyll smoothie. He was Tony Stark. He was in his penthouse. J.A.R.V.I.S. and Pepper were here. He had been out to get pizza, he was testing out the Mark 30. But he had also just returned from a thousand years in the past. He’d just killed Thanos with the Mark 175. Both realities wrestled with one another in his brain.

He willed the suit to retract into the nanoparticle housing unit, but apparently he wasn’t quite there yet. Nothing happened.

“J, get this thing off me.” Tony panted.

The suit opened up in an embarrassingly rudimentary way, and Tony fell forward onto his marble floors.

“Tony? Oh my God!” Pepper rushed forward to steady him. “What on Earth is going on?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” he croaked. “What the—where’s Peter?”

“Who?”

Tony blacked out for the second time in what could’ve been seconds or years. He had no idea about anything except that he needed to find Peter.

\---

Tony woke up even more frazzled than when he’d gone under if that was possible. He was grateful that he’d been put to bed, and from the looks of it, Pepper had put the entire pharmacy on his bedside table along with a glass of water that looked like God’s own nectar.

“Peter?” Tony said again. He struggled to get out of the bed.

He looked down at his chest, terrified that there would be something more than skin occupying space there. There was nothing glowing through his shirt, but that didn’t mean anything.

Tony clutched at the empty area in relief but pulled his shirt off to inspect for scars that might indicate that the arc reactor had once been there. A small part of him already knew he’d find an incision.

The presence of the scar relieved Tony more than he ever thought it would. That meant something was right. He knew something about this body.

Why wasn’t anyone answering him?

“J, you there?”

“Sir, I’ve notified Miss Potts that you’re indeed awake and looking for her.”

“No. I said Peter, not Pepper.”

“Of course,” J.A.R.V.I.S. agreed. “I’m not familiar with anyone named Peter unless you mean the lab assistant—”

“What?” Hope bloomed in Tony’s chest. Was this his Peter? Was this some alternate reality where Peter worked for him? “Show me. Now.”

The AI displayed the picture in holographic form.

“No.” Tony waved. “No, that’s not him. Get rid of that.”

“You’d like me to fire him? He’s quite gifted, recently hired.”

“Jesus.” Tony ran a hand over his eyes. He really needed to upgrade things around here. J.A.R.V.I.S. knew the difference between getting rid of a picture and firing someone. “Don’t fire anyone, just settle down, okay? Stop displaying the picture.”

He understood the instruction that time.

Tony got up from the bed, slightly wobbly. Was he taller? He looked down at himself to see, but that kind of thing was difficult to verify just by looking.

“How tall am I?”

“Six feet,” J.A.R.V.I.S. responded. “Plus a couple of millimetres, but you’ve told me to refrain from noting that since it sounds like you’re trying too hard.”

“Good,” Tony commented at both of J’s answers. Six feet, eh? Maybe he could get a break from those designer sneakers with a hidden insert that made sneakers very aptly named. It wasn’t his fault he was surrounded by veritable giants like Cap, Thor, and Hulk. Clint, Natasha, and Bruce when he wasn’t green were the only people he could look normal next to. Even Pepper was taller in heels. Then there was Peter, his petite dream boy. The thought snapped him out of his momentary lapse of smugness.

_Peter Benjamin Parker, where are you?_

Just like the inkling he’d had when he wondered whether his chest held an arc reactor, he inexplicably knew that he didn’t know Peter in this world. That was a shame.

“Are you okay, Tony?” Pepper asked. Her eyes were red and she was obviously breathless.

“Huh? Oh yeah. Peachy,” Tony answered. “Was I out long?” Pepper’s frazzled state made it seem like she was worried more than usual.

“You were out for a full day.” Pepper said. “Wanna tell me what the hell is going on?”

Tony sighed. So it was the same old Pepper. “Your hair…it’s red.”

“It’s always been red,” Pepper retorted.

Tony held up his hand. “Not that red. It was more, uh, strawberry blonde. Not full on red.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” She pressed her lips together.

Tony opened his mouth to speak, but then promptly closed it. She was worried about his well-being and offended that he’d questioned her appearance. On one hand that was typical Pepper, but on the other hand… “We’re not together, are we?”

Pepper groaned. “Why do you always ask me that after you pass out? It that like, a sub-routine you built into your own brain or something?”

“Possibly.”

“Well delete it because it’s getting old,” Pepper complained. “I can obviously see you’re all right, so I’m going home. If that’s okay with you, _Mr. Stark_.”

“So you don’t live here?”

“Bye, Tony. I’ll see you tomorrow for the meeting.”

“Huh? Oh right. Bye. Thanks. Yeah, tomorrow, the meeting. Sure. And she’s gone.” Tony waved his hand again.

Tony gathered what evidence he’d been presented with quickly. He was back in the tower with Pepper and a practically invalid J.A.R.V.I.S. with a suit that was barely good for scrap metal. So he was Iron Man, or at least had a suit, and he’d had an arc reactor in his chest which probably meant that Afghanistan had happened, but he didn’t know Peter.

It didn’t take much to get to the conclusion that he was in either an alternate or a new timeline. The one that would’ve come to pass if Thanos hadn’t been screwing things up for a millennium. Okay, so he didn’t know Peter. That had been one of many expected outcomes. The other side of that coin was that Peter didn’t exist at all which Tony couldn’t fathom. That couldn’t be true. He had memories of his own lifetime, the Snap, and the aftermath, but he also knew that he had meetings to attend, and he was expected to give a lecture at MIT the next week.

So he’d merged with the alternate version of himself. Tony felt a little guilty about high jacking the poor bastard’s life with his own shitty memories, but if his consciousness had absorbed Other Tony’s memories and experiences, then he was technically still alive, plus if he was taller that meant the other one’s body had won that fight. He was simultaneously two Tony’s. That was a lot of self-loathing for one body.

Tony wondered if he could equate the situation to demonic possession. He was both the possessor and the possessed. He spoke to himself internally. _Hey, anybody home, or am I the new driver of this meat sack now? No, anybody? Other Tony. You here?_

There was no answer which was both disconcerting and comforting. It was handy to still have the other timeline’s Tony’s data within him, so he knew what the fuck was going on…sort of. The alternatives to this where much worse. He could’ve been zapped out of existence a la Back to the Future, and his goals would’ve evaporated with him. He would’ve erased an entire timeline never to see the outcome, never to be sure that he’d saved everyone. The other option was that he travelled back to…now? And ran into Other Tony in the flesh. Whatever year it was didn’t need two Tony’s running around. Then, of course, he could’ve been thrust into this new timeline without any of Other Tony’s memories, and he would’ve had to deal with Pepper and whoever else was around without any applicable knowledge.

He sat on the edge of his bed and closed his eyes, trying to conjure up the memories of this second, displaced Tony. His parents were dead. _Comforting. Huh, it really was a car crash._ _So The Winter Soldier isn’t a thing._ MIT. Rhodey. Happy. Pepper. Afghanistan. Iron Man. The Betrayal of Obadiah. _Sure, nothing new there._ Ivan Vanko and his crazy whips. Loki and New Y— _wait, no New York?_ Extremis and Aldrich Killian. _Back on track._ That little whippersnapper, Harley. Ultron. Wait. _Rewind. No Ultron? No civil war?_

Tony racked his brain, trying to feel the difference between memories that were his, and the ones that were his but not.

“Of course, no Thanos, no Loki attack. No Avengers. Shit.” Tony raised his eyebrows. So that’s why he didn’t know Peter. He’d never had any reason to recruit him because there was no fight to break the Avengers up. Well, at least he knew where he was now. Stark Tower, not Avengers Tower.

Tears came to his eyes at the implications of Thanos and the Avengers never having existed. No wormhole over New York. No impending nukes to divert. Therefore, no Toomes and no Vulture. No alien weapons of any kind on the streets. Sokovia was intact. No Vision, but he had J. No shitbeating in Siberia. 

“Holy fucking shit,” Tony said. It was like a clean slate except for the kidnapping part, but that was child’s play at this point in his life. Plus, it had been the push he had needed to stop developing weapons and start working on clean energy alternatives and more family-friendly tech. He could be proud of his career, at least.

The memory delving gave him the feeling that he’d lived both lives without living either of them. It was a total mindfuck, but alleviated some of the guilt he felt for taking over something that wasn’t—well, actually was his.

Tony didn’t like thinking about the existence of a separate version of himself. It made him feel a bit like he’d murdered it—him? So maybe there was no Other Tony. There was just who he would've been without Thanos' existence who happened to have the leftover memories of a timeline with Thanos.

“I need to see Peter," he decided.

He didn’t care that he was just getting his bearings, or that he technically had no reason to make contact with the boy. He at least had to see him and know he was all right. He would figure out the rest later.

He showered and picked out the suit that looked closest to Peter’s favourite, and then he called Happy.

Tony was over the moon that his best friend still existed. If mostly everyone he knew was around, and mostly everything was the same except for a few annoying details—he really needed to upgrade J.A.R.V.I.S.—then there was an extremely good chance that Peter was alive and well. Maybe not exactly how he’d remembered, but at least alive. Tony wondered if Peter would be taller too. He sort of hoped not, but that was the least of his worries. All he wanted for the kid was a heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to visit my tumblr: winterironspiderling


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finds Peter again.

“Happy,” Tony sighed as he got into the back of the Rolls Royce. “How are you, buddy?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the traffic.”

Happy launched into a long-winded rant about the decline of the city and how pedestrians, cyclists, and unnecessary motorists clogged the road at all hours of the day, and how there was no such thing as rush hour anymore. “It should just be called rush day. It’s a rush, all goddamn day.”

Tony grinned in the backseat, his heart swelling in his chest. For the first time in like, ever, he thought things might be all right.

“So where am I taking you again? Midtown High School. What’s there? You gotta give some speech, or something?”

“Something like that,” Tony commented. “There’s someone I’m…interested in. Maybe a potential recruit.”

“You know, kids today. I don’t know if I’d bother,” Happy said. “Especially from Queens. Like I said. This city isn’t what it used to be…”

Tony rolled his eyes fondly behind his yellow-tinted aviators. A complaining Happy was a sign that things were exactly the way they were supposed to be.

He wasn’t used to paying much attention to the passing scenery while Happy drove him; he mostly fiddled on his phone to pass the time, but since he was in a completely new territory, he used the time to get acquainted with New York’s landscape. To his delight, it was still called New York, and they still drove on the right side of the road, but there were small differences like the colours of street signs. The billboards advertised perfumes, movies, and new music with different celebrities than he was used to. Maybe that was a generational thing, though. Times were changing just like Happy said. It could’ve just been the next generation syndrome he’d experienced in his own timeline. It happened to all adults sooner or later.

He’d left 2018 to go back almost a thousand years to cut off the path that would see Thanos conquer planets, commit universal genocide, and kill the love of his life, and now he was back in what he assumed was the equivalent of 2018 just different. It should mean that Peter was 17 and still a couple months away from graduating. A lifetime, or maybe now two lifetimes, of being a genius had gotten him rich and famous, and arguably Peter, but his greatest act had to be this. Had to be. As far he could tell, everyone was back, and maybe they had to look at blue street signs instead of green, and maybe the license plates weren’t quite the same shades of yellow and blue they’d once been, and Pepper’s hair was more red than blonde. He was taller, and Happy was maybe slightly more grumpy, and…God he couldn’t wait to see—meet?—Peter.

“Okay, boss. Want me to drop you off and do a lap?” Happy broke through Tony’s thoughts.

“Yeah, why don’t you just go park somewhere. I might be a while…I don’t know.”

Tony got out of the car and checked his watch. 2PM, so roughly an hour before Peter would get out of class. He could wait a little longer.

Tony noted that security for the school was pretty lax since he was able just to walk in. He roamed the halls, passing by what he thought could be Peter’s locker. He checked the award cases filled with trophies, plaques, and medals that boasted the students’ accomplishments.

Tony nearly collapsed when he saw the photo next to the Academic Decathlon Nationals trophy. There he was. A beaming Peter next to Ned and MJ, and a few other people Tony didn’t care about. He wanted to punch through the glass and nab the photo. Of course, Peter was smart in this timeline, too. Tony squinted to see if there were any apparent differences in Peter’s appearance, but there didn’t seem to be. He was wearing a dorky shirt under his yellow blazer, and he looked breathtaking.

“Can I help you?”

Tony turned to the unfamiliar voice and witnessed the usual reaction of awe that most people gave him.

“Tony—Mr. Stark. Iron Man.”

“You got it in three.” Tony offered a hand to who he assumed was the principal.

“I’m Mr. Morita,” the man explained. “The principal.”

Tony nodded. Okay?

“What, may I ask, are you doing here?”

Tony deliberated. He hadn’t quite thought that far, and he figured it might sound creepy to ask to see Peter Parker for absolutely no reason.

“You may ask, absolutely.” Tony stalled. “The thing is…the thing is.” Tony clapped his hands together. “I’ve been looking into ways I can spread the wealth. Thinking of starting a fund, a grant, or a scholarship of some kind. Maybe even an internship. My team. They, uh, they said Midtown Science and Technology was worth looking into.”

“Wow. That would be absolutely fantastic, Mr. Stark. It would be an honour to take you on a tour of the school. Give you an inside look at our cutting-edge curricula. Introduce you to some of the staff and students.”

“That would be exquisite.”

Every classroom Tony entered sent his heart fluttering. Any minute he expected to meet eyes with Peter across the room and feel whole again. He wouldn’t be able to specifically ask to see Peter because that would be strange and suspicious, and he didn’t know which subject would narrow it down because he couldn’t be sure which class Peter would be in. For all he knew, because of the minor changes he’d noted so far, classes like chemistry and math didn’t exist. Maybe they were called something else. The memories he had, but hadn’t technically lived through himself told him that this reality did in fact have chemistry and math. Still, he didn’t want to open his mouth too quickly and sound ridiculous asking about things that didn’t exist.

“This is the robotics lab,” Principal Morita explained with a gesture. “As you can see it’s in dire need of an upgrade.”

Tony glanced at the man beside him and then back at the lab. Apparently, his own lab and Midtown’s had something in common. This timeline wasn’t kind to technology. If Tony hadn’t been here for Peter, he probably would’ve given the school some kind of donation anyway.

“Good bones,” Tony commented. “I can see what you mean, though.”

The principal almost sagged in relief when Tony agreed with him.

“I’d love to talk to some of the students,” Tony hinted. “Maybe a few of the seniors. The smartest you got.”

“They’re all smart to be quite honest with you, sir, but there are a couple that stand out.”

“I’ll bet.”

That had to mean Peter. If it didn’t, Tony was going to have a serious talk with the boy and see exactly where his head was at. Of course, he remembered that Peter’s performance at school had a minor hiccup after their escapade in Germany. Peter had quit all of his extra-curriculars and started skipping class. But since he hadn’t been here to recruit Peter into a fight he shouldn’t have been in and make him stray from a bright future, he doubted that was the case now. Having won the Academic Decathlon was a good sign, also.

The principal led him to AP physics, he could feel in his entire being that this was where he was supposed to be. He could almost sense Peter’s proximity. Hear the echoes of his voice.

The man knocked on the door, exchanged a few words with the overwhelmed looking teacher who perked up at the sight of Tony Stark, and then they were walking into the classroom.

The dorky teacher announced, “Hey everyone, look who it is,” even though every single student in the class was already gaping.

Tony’s eyes searched the sea of open mouths for the face he wanted, and there he was.

Peter was in the back row, his eyes wide and cheeks red.

Tony had to resist going back there and taking the boy into his arms. He dug his teeth into his lower lip, thankful that his sunglasses added some semblance of cover so that the whole class didn’t see his watery eyes.

“Right.” Tony cleared his throat and willed himself to tear his gaze away from Peter. “So, I’m Tony Stark. Any questions?”

That got things moving right along, but after he said it, he realized it probably wasn’t the best idea to invite questioning when he was trying to blend into his new role with limited preparation time.

The teacher who he learned was Mr. Harrington took a seat on the top of his desk while Tony played Q&A with the kiddies. The principal stood off to the side, practically salivating at the hope of getting more funding for the school.

Tony was dying for Peter to say something, but shy as ever, he just sat quietly, listening. With his Spider-Man senses, Tony imagined Peter could hear his heart racing.

The bell rang and many of the students hung behind, gathering their things in slow motion so they could be close to Tony as long as possible. A few braver students even approached him for an autograph. It occurred to Tony belatedly that maybe Peter had been wide-eyed not out of admiration, but something else. His own Peter had stuttered and blushed his way through their first meeting, but maybe this Peter hated him. This was his Peter, though. There weren’t two of anyone. There was only the timeline that saw half of everything dead, and this timeline that had everyone back, but maybe with a couple different features. There was no other Peter anymore. No other Tony.

Tony didn’t care that hanging around made him look conspicuous. After a few minutes, even the stragglers had to give it up to make the bus on time. He took it as a good sign that Peter was still there. So maybe he wanted to meet him?

Tony almost fucked up within seconds of the boy approaching him. He’d almost called him by name.

“Hi there,” Tony greeted instead.

“Uhm, hi, sir. Mr. Stark.”

It was like the heavens had opened up and angels were singing from the clouds.

“Hi,” Tony said again. He held out his hand for Peter to shake. Did anyone notice that he hadn’t done that for any of the other kids?

“Oh.” Peter blushed. He took Tony’s hand in his smaller one and shook it lightly.

The boy’s grip was so light. Had it always been that light? Maybe Peter was newer to his powers and was overcompensating for his super strength by acting weak.

Tony stared as openly as he could from behind his glasses. Peter was the same height. He had the same brown eyes. The same waved hair. He was wearing a plaid shirt today. Fuck, Tony could’ve cried.

Peter must’ve realized he was just standing in front of Tony without speaking.

Tony threw him a lifeline. “What’s your name?”

“Peter. I’m Peter Parker.”

“Of course you are,” Tony responded. “Well, you look like you have a question.”

“I don’t know. Not really,” Peter admitted. “I’m…this is stupid. I’m a big fan.”

“Are you now?”

Peter nodded. “It’s embarrassing, really. Don’t know why I’m telling you, but yeah. I can’t believe you’re here.”

_I can’t believe you’re here either._

“Believe it.”

Peter ran his hand through his hair. “So what did you think of the school? Are you gonna offer a scholarship, or an internship, do you think? ‘Cause we could seriously use it. I’ve—I mean, I know tons of people who’d do anything to work at Stark Industries. It would be a huge honour for any of us.”

Tony pretended to deliberate. The longer he took, the longer he could talk to Peter.

“You know, I think I just might have a few ideas to spice things up around here.”

“Really?” Peter’s face brightened even more. “That would be so sick.”

Tony quirked his lips. “I’ll have to go over things with my team, but I haven’t seen anything drastic that would deter me from supporting this place. Not unless you have people tied up in the closets…”

“What? Oh! No.” Peter grinned. “We tie them up in the basement. Keep ‘em all together.”

_I love you._

“’Course.”

“Uhm, well I better go,” Peter said. “Do you—do you think you’ll be coming back?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tony lied. “Anything’s possible.”

“Oh.” Peter was disappointed.

Tony hated seeing that look on Peter’s face, but he could see the principal and the teacher shifting their weight impatiently. He had to let Peter go for now.

“See you around, kid.” Tony tried to sound non-dismissive, but there was no away around it.

“It was…so great to meet you, Mr. Stark. Even if you don’t choose us for the—well, whatever you’re doing. You’re a complete legend.”

Tony’s heart swelled. Peter always had a way with words.

“Great to meet you too, Peter.” Tony held out his hand for Peter to shake again because he just couldn’t resist.

The boy shook his hand just as lightly as he had the first time, and then he was gone.

Tony didn’t remember what either Mr. Morita or Mr. Harrington said to him after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd really appreciate it if you let me know what you think!
> 
> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> xx


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony learns some more differences between this timeline and the one he came from.

Tony was breathless by the time Happy got him back to the tower. Seeing Peter had renewed him even more than he’d expected it to. His return to Avengers Compound after being trapped in space for a month had felt anticlimactic and disappointing because all he had to look forward to after the rescue was weeks of recovery and uncertainty all while he dealt with the loss of Peter.

Returning to Stark Tower was wildly different; instead of sorrow, he was filled with hope and purpose. He had a plan and priorities where before all he’d had were dead-ends and theories. He had Peter back—for the most part—and that was enough for his spirits to soar.

Tony still hadn’t let it completely sink in that he’d succeeded. He’d won. Beaten Thanos for good. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t about to wake up and find out it was all just a dream, or have the carpet ripped out from under him when something went terribly wrong with this reality. The thought stayed in the back of his mind, but maybe his new body wasn’t wired for tons of self-doubt and dwelling because he didn’t pick the thought back up and play with it, agonizing over the possibility of failure. Tony was determined that this was his life now. No pending alien threats. No nuclear missiles on their way to blow up New York. No unhinged AIs destroying the world. All that was left for him to do was sit back and enjoy the victory.

He’d taken a bit of a loss when it came to Peter not knowing who he was, but that was nothing he couldn’t rectify. All he had to do was come up with some scheme that would allow him to spend more time at the school and give him opportunity to connect with Peter. In the meantime, he would get accustomed to being back in the penthouse, being back at the top of the food chain, and being a couple inches taller.

Tony took time in front of the mirror inspecting all of the differences this body of his had compared to the older model.

Besides the height, not much had changed. He still had dark hair and brown eyes, and his facial hair was meticulously groomed as always. The nuances lied in the wrinkles, or lack thereof. Apparently being an Avenger, and not just Iron Man had put a few miles on his body. In this timeline, he’d been betrayed by a few people and fought a few fights, but it was nothing compared to what he’d endured in that other life. He wondered if having memories of all those things that technically never happened would slowly age and deteriorate this body too.

His arm didn’t have that tremor in it from being repeatedly broken. His back didn’t ache from taking so many falls.

“Oh dear,” Tony mused as he twisted to get a better view of his backside. He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan at the tattoo on his right shoulder blade. A flash of a memory told him that he’d gotten it after the dust had settled from defeating Vanko. The atomic structure of Vibranium. Another thing that wasn’t so different between this timeline and the other was that he was partial to basking in his successes. He hadn’t gone as far as to get a tattoo—he probably he just hadn’t had the time.

His dick was the same size which was fine by him. “Not much room for improvement, is there J?”

“Decline to answer?” J.A.R.V.I.S. teased.

Tony smirked more for his benefit than J's.

After staring at himself got old, he moved on to checking out his history—since it was quicker to consume the documents and view the pictures instead of playing mental gymnastics. Certain things were easy to pick out of his brain as different from the original timeline, but other memories or experiences didn't have a distinct feeling to them which made them difficult to classify as belonging to one timeline or the other. Better to be sure so he didn't fuck up and embarrass himself.

His birthday was the same which was gratifying. It meant that he looked young for his age.

He looked into his parents and their death, and that sent him on an Internet spiral that lasted hours into the morning. _Are you even Tony Stark if you don’t have daddy issues? Mommy issues? Parental issues in general?  
_

Tony checked out all the information he could gather on all the members of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. Some histories were more interesting than others.

James Rhodes was still an important colonel and still War Machine which was super cool and expected since Tony couldn’t imagine his best friend being anything else. He didn’t call him Rhodey, though, just Rhodes which had become Rhodeo before devolving into Cowboy. Tony wasn’t the biggest fan of that. He’d have to work on a new nickname for his partner in crime.

Bruce Banner had never become the Hulk. Tony couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed at that since he had a soft spot for the big, green guy, but he was glad Bruce wasn’t under that stress anymore. Tony gratefully realized that Bruce worked at—not for, which apparently was an important distinction to the scientist—Stark Industries in R&D.

Steve Rogers had been saved from the ice, but he didn’t pick up the shield again after that. He was apparently living a quiet life in Brooklyn with— _oh what’s this?—_ Bucky Barnes. They’d gone into the water together and had been rescued from the ice together. _How romantic._

Tony had nearly spit out his coffee when J.A.R.V.I.S. brought the photo up. Apparently, the serum Steve had been injected with had just made him strong and not big. The only thing recognizable about the man was his serious expression. Tony made a mental note to take a trip to Brooklyn sometime and bump into the guy. It might be difficult to see Barnes with him, but was he supposed to be resentful about things this pair hadn’t really done? Tony considered starting a search for a good therapist, but he opted for making some more coffee instead.

Natasha was still a badass spy-slash-agent-slash-assassin. Tony thought she seemed happy. It was a stark difference from what he’d seen last time he’d been with her. She had been almost as devastated as he’d been after the Avengers’ loss. The file in front of Tony and his own memories told him they were still friends since he consulted for S.H.I.E.L.D. That was good to know.

Clint was the hardest to find a record of, surprisingly. That was probably intentional. He looked…really different. Taller. Blonder. And he’d retired after being deafened during a mission, but Tony knew firsthand that retirement didn’t stick where Barton was concerned. _Huh. Good for him. Staying out of trouble._

Then there was Thor whose search turned up nothing except old myths and legends. Thor had never been seen on Earth. Not even once. Tony frowned at that. He liked Thor, and it had been exciting to deal with someone so unique, and alien, really. Tony had to remind himself that was a good thing. This timeline had significantly less catastrophic events to deal with and no Asgardian troublemakers making waves which meant he didn’t go through suits like water—no wonder he was only on Mark 30. It was a positive, and he had the memories of Thor anyway. _Maybe I should write a book, or something._ All the shit he’d been through might make an interesting plot for people to read since life was so uneventful without Thanos, and if he channelled his dead-end, negative emotions into something creative, maybe it’d be easier to live with them rattling around in his brain.

After he’d checked out everybody he even vaguely cared about—except Peter—he went back through Stark Industries’ history. He brushed up on his pop culture. He searched through various media outlets to see what kind of dirt they had on him. To his relief, there were no sex tapes or scandals. Good. Winning Peter over would be that much easier if he didn’t have to do damage control for some deviant’s (his) actions.

There was only so much snooping he could do, and after a while, he had to give it up. Any other details he needed to recall could be remembered on the spot, and anything else didn’t seem important enough to bother with. Besides, Pepper had meetings for him to attend. That was something he knew well.

The idea of searching Peter tugged at his mind, but he resisted going down that road since he wasn’t supposed to know the boy. If he started stalking him, then it would be too easy to let details slip. He could imagine accidentally referencing how Peter lived with May and Peter wondering how he could know such a thing, or worse, asking Tony what the hell he was talking about. ‘ _I live with my parents. Why would you think I lived with my aunt?’_ After all, it was a unique living arrangement.

He had seen for himself that this timeline had preserved everything that he loved about the boy, but if there was some difference about his life, he wanted to learn it organically. He was most curious to know what kind of Spidersuit he was swinging around in. Probably that god awful onesie which reminded him of another thing he had to attend to—upgrading his suits and designing one for Peter from scratch since all his grief-designing had gone to waste when he’d abandoned ship. But, since the blueprints were stuck in his mind, it would be easy to recreate his work. All he needed to do was upgrade just about everything in Stark Tower, and he’d be set. His to-do list was growing to be overwhelmingly long.

Tony groaned. He had a lot of work ahead of him. First and foremost was arranging a way to see Peter again.

He called Pepper for help with that.

“Hey, Pep. What kind of funding can we scrounge up for scholarships, research grants, and some donations to high schools in the area?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know,” Tony urged. “Maybe some internship positions available within the company?”

Pepper was quiet on her end of the line. “Stocks are up, and the company’s worth last time I checked was somewhere around twenty billion, so I don’t know what you mean by ‘scrounge’.”

“Don’t nitpick,” Tony commented. “What can we do?”

“Well,” Pepper began, “I’d say one or two million to start. Internships are a little trickier because obviously these kids—high school you said—they’d need background checks. It might take a while.”

“Great. Get on it. Divvy up whatever money into the schools that need it most, and make sure that list includes Midtown High School whether they qualify or not.”

Pepper sighed. “What’s so special about Midtown?”

“Promising student,” Tony explained vaguely.

“Tony, you know you’re going to MIT next week to announce the September Foundation. Do you want to be doing high schools in the same tour? Because you know you’ll have to make appearances wherever you donate.”

_Oh no. That would be terrible…_

“I’m feeling generous,” Tony said. “Things are slow right now anyway, wouldn’t you agree? What else would I be doing?”

“That’s true.”

“Anyway, that’s all,” Tony said. “I want this to be top priority.”

“What are you up to?”

_She sounds suspicious. Oh well, what else is new?_

“Do you really wanna know?”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Pepper admitted.

“Then I’ll play it close to the vest,” Tony decided. “Don’t worry yourself over it. I know what I’m doing.”

“Uh huh, I’ve heard that before.”

\---

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Tony greeted. “How are you liking the new interface?”

“Very much, sir. Regrettably, it was not something I knew I needed until you made the changes.”

“I know,” Tony sighed wistfully. “Don’t worry, Daddy’s got you. I can’t believe it had to come to this…”

“Would you like me to open a new file for Mark 31?” The AI inquired. “You seem ambitious this afternoon, and you did express distaste for the suit last Tuesday.”

Tony mused for a moment before he answered. “J, do we have info on the Mark 1, or did I just start you right off at 2?”

“I have information for the first suit you created.”

“You know what, J? Archive it all. Marks 1-30. Get rid of them. Create a comprehensive file of flight and combat performance highlights. Note major flaws. Forget colour—it’s not important. I got a surprise for you.”

“Sir?”

“New file. Mark 1.”

Tony typed command after command into J’s interface, and even the chatty AI didn’t have anything to say once the suit was rendered on the holoscreen. He’d gone from a soapbox racer to Formula 1 in mere minutes. Anyone who’d seen his old Mark 30 compared to his recreation of the Mark 175 would’ve popped their top. The difference was night and day. Of course, he didn’t need a suit that could hold up through time and space travel for everyday flight, but it would be nice to have. Plus, he liked showing off for J.A.R.V.I.S.

It took nearly a full day to assemble a usable suit, and it went straight to his display case.

After he was satisfied, he moved onto Mark 2 which would be his everyday suit. Since he was feeling ambitious, as J had noted, he added in a few black panels along with the red and gold. Made him seem a bit edgier, and it was a subtle nod to the Avengers team uniform he’d been toying with before the team broke up. Might as well act like that never happened. Move on.

Then it was a Mark 1 Spidersuit for Peter. He wanted to be ready when the day came for him to be close enough to Peter to give the suit to him without it being weird.

The time he could spend in the lab was endless, and he thought he’d spent enough time in the lab at the compound, but apparently there was no such thing as too much innovating for Tony Stark.

Creating the suits kept his mind off the fact that he couldn’t be around Peter yet, and it kept him from researching the boy, although that’s all he wanted to do.

And maybe he’d done one or two drive-bys through Peter’s neighbourhood to make sure everything was okay. Maybe three or four. Who was to say? And if he caught a glimpse of the boy leaving for school and coming home in the evenings, then that was nobody's business but his.

In no time, it was time to take his obligatory trip to MIT. Then finally, once that was over with, Pepper gave the go ahead for him to return to Midtown High.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony sees Peter for a second time.

Tony felt uncharacteristically nervous while he stood at the front of Midtown Tech’s gymnasium with Pepper and a few other SI employees.

Pepper was supposed to kick things off and introduce their posse which included department heads for most of the company’s divisions, and then each of them would explain a little bit about what their department’s role was within the business scheme. Then Pepper would take over again to introduce Tony who would then reveal his philanthropic plan.

Tony knew all he was doing for this school, and others like it, was only generous on the surface since it was actually just an elaborate plan to get close to Peter, but did the why matter so much? There was that quote about the ends justifying the means, which probably wasn’t the most moral guideline, but then again, a lot of schools were about to get a lot of money to do a lot of things with… So what if Midtown slipped onto Stark Industries’ radar not because it was particularly needy, but because one of the students appealed to Tony? Where morals were considered, this barely registered as bad on Tony’s scale.

While his associates spoke and boasted about his company’s various attributes, Tony scanned the crowd.

The entire school was present for the assembly, even though the subject matter mainly concerned the senior students. _Ah what the hell,_ Tony thought. He might as well make his support for Midtown school ongoing. He could offer scholarships, grants, and internships every year as long as it remained feasible—even after Peter’s graduation—the younger grades might as well hear what they had to look forward to, and the donation he was giving would benefit them too. It was just irritating that so many faces were obscuring the only face he cared to see.

Tony unconsciously went to tap at his glasses to get E.D.I.T.H. going for facial recognition, but he had to turn his aborted hand movement into a scratch since there was nothing between the frames besides functioning, glass lenses. _Nothing to see here._

Finally, just as it was his turn to take the podium—metaphorically since he didn’t need it to hide behind—he spotted Peter. Thank God for that kid’s fanboy tendencies. Peter had sat up much straighter in his chair, and it had allowed his face to peak above some girl who was chewing gum despite having braces.

Tony smiled and winked at Peter. Despite the distance between them, Peter’s killer eyesight would pick up the gesture. Tony knew it was bold since he had no business flirting with the kid who he’d technically only met once before, but what was a single wink in the grand scheme when he knew what Peter’s mouth tasted like already? Or when he’d crossed space and time for him?

Tony stood a little taller now that he’d spotted Peter and knew he had his attention.

“So, this is the part where I yell good morning at you and have you say it back, right?” Tony teased. “And then I tell you how much you suck and make you say it again? Isn’t that how these things usually go?”

Everyone in the audience laughed.

“But it’s not a good morning today, is it? So I’m not gonna bother with that. It’s a fantastic morning. In fact, probably the best you’ve had so far… I’m about to shell out a ridiculous amount of money to kickstart your post-secondary careers.”

Tony continued in his typically jokey fashion, explaining that he would be donating a hundred thousand dollars to the school’s account to be used for field trips, new equipment, or better vending machines in the cafeteria. Whatever, he wasn’t going to ask for the receipts. Then, besides that, he asked that the grade twelve teachers organized a science fair—a mini expo, if you will—so that teams of up to two students could innovate something. It was for fun and bragging rights, but also, the winning team would be offered a summer internship at SI before they went to whichever college, and on top of that, they’d be offered fifty thousand dollars to help with tuition.

Tony had to keep pausing since the students were so excited. He imagined that normally high school students wouldn’t give a single shit about a science fair since it just meant more work, but he was talking to Queens’ biggest nerds. These kids lived and breathed science and were ecstatic. Even the teachers seemed thrilled. Probably because the Keurig in the staff was crusty, and they wanted to get a new one as soon as Tony signed the cheque.

Tony was on a roll to begin with, and then he saw Peter nudging Ned excitedly, both of them smiling. He decided to give everyone in the room a thousand bucks just for fun to see Peter smile a little bigger—plus he knew the boy could use it. Maybe he was buttering Peter up, maybe he was just generous, maybe he would’ve done it anyway. Again, did it matter? He was Tony Stark and these impulsive giveaways were expected of him.

After his speech was over, and he’d effectively bought off the entire student body, he stood by while his team fielded questions. Many people wanted to talk to Tony himself, since he was a celebrity hero, but Pepper dealt with that by distributing premade prints with his reproduced autograph.

Tony stood nearby, chatting with the principal, watching while the classes filed out of the gym. He kept his eye out for Peter. He thought he might find him in the line-up for the tacky autographs, but he wasn’t. Tony made a mental note to get E.D.I.T.H. up and running as soon as he got back to the tower. He wasn’t sold on the name anymore, since he’d only thought of it in the event that he got killed in action and had to leave the glasses to Peter. That hadn’t been a fun protocol to code, and it had been unnecessary in the end since Peter had been the one to die. _Nope, let’s think of other things. Like how Peter is right there and not dead. Eyes on the prize, Tony. Remember, not dead._

He toyed with different acronyms for the security system while Mr. Morita took the opportunity to talk his ear off about how grateful he was for the generous contribution to the school and how excited the kids were. How Midtown wouldn’t let him down.

You Can’t Kill Me. Y.C.K.M _. Nah, doesn’t make any sense._ I’ll Never Die _._ I.N.D. _Potential._ Peter I Time-Travelled For You. P.I.T.T.F.Y. _Not bad. We’ll pick this brainstorm up later._

As more students trickled out of the gym, Tony’s field of vision was cleared, and then he saw Ned and Peter at the back of the gym, huddled near a basketball hoop. No doubt they were discussing the webbing they were going to produce for the competition. If it all went to plan, Tony would get to declare them the winners, and then Peter would be spending two months interning at Stark Industries, perfectly in his grasp. Maybe his generosity stemmed from the guilt of hosting a rigged contest with such high stakes—fifty thousand bucks and an internship at SI was a big deal for a high school student—but the other kids would have a fair shot. If they beat Peter and Ned fair and square, Tony would have no choice but to think of another plan.

In the meantime, he would have a reason to be around the school and Peter. _God, I sound like a predator. Am I predator?_ _No, I’m a romantic opportunist. Yeah, I like that. Romantic Opportunist Newly Displaced…Actually? R.O.N.D.A.? Closer, better. Not quite there yet._

Tony excused himself from Mr. Morita, snatched two of his autographed prints and headed over to Ned and Peter.

“Hey, kids,” Tony greeted. _Yeah, I totally sound like a predator right now. Lord help me._ “Line too long for you?” He held out the photos to Ned and Peter and realized he looked like a presumptuous douche doing so, but whatever. He needed an in.

Peter and Ned just stared up at him wide-eyed. Ned recovered first. “No thank you, sir. Peter’s already got one hanging in his room.”

Peter smacked Ned hard on the arm without taking his eyes off Tony.

Tony winced in sympathy for Ned. A smack from Peter had to hurt.

“It’s Peter, right?” Tony asked. “We spoke a couple weeks ago.”

“You remember?” Peter blurted.

“I wouldn’t forget your face,” Tony commented.

He had the great satisfaction of watching Peter blush while Ned nudged him. Tony wondered if they had any idea how obvious they were being, but he was in no place to judge.

“I’ll take one anyways since you went to the trouble of bringing them over,” Peter said, taking the photos from Tony’s hand. He didn't end up handing the second one to Ned.

“Appreciate the support.”

Peter beamed at him. Ned shifted his weight.

“What’s your name?” Tony turned his attention to Ned.

“I’m Ned Leeds. Sir.”

Tony stroked his beard. “Sorry, bit loud in here. You’re _Ed_?” Lame, but he was grasping at straws trying to keep the conversation flowing, and Ned and Peter weren't helping much.

“Close enough,” Ned said.

Peter laughed.

“You two teaming up for the mini expo, then?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” Peter answered. “We pretty much team up for everything. It sucks we’re only allowed two members, though, because we have another friend.”

“Where is she?” Tony said. He knew who Peter meant. MJ.

Peter inclined his head. “She’s protesting downtown at a homeless shelter because they reduced the bed allowance.”

Tony would have to donate some money there, too once he figured out which shelter it was.

He was tempted to alter the rules to allow their group to be a trio, but when so much money was involved, they’d already drawn up contracts and rules. It was two per team, and Pepper had given him a hard enough time over offering internships at all, let alone two or three.

“Well, I’ll make sure even the students who were absent today get a cheque,” Tony decided. “So she’s not even more left out.”

“Wow.” Peter nodded. “That’d be great. Thank you, sir.”

Ned agreed.

Tony sighed. It was reaching that point in the conversation again where he’d have to leave. He couldn’t wait until he bonded more with Peter. It would be easier once the boy was out of high school, and even easier when he won the competition and started his two-month internship—if everything went right. Tony expected that Peter would confide in him about being Spider-Man soon after that, and then he’d offer him the Spidersuit, and then it would be a piece of cake to resume their relationship.

Tony knew he could’ve called Peter out for being Spider-Man right away, but he’d only done that out of desperation, and now that he had some time to ease himself into Peter’s life, he was going to do it the old-fashioned way. No researching and no spying (more than was absolutely necessary).

“Okay, Mr. Stark, we better get going back to class,” Peter said. “Thanks for the pictures, and all the money, and stuff.”

“My pleasure,” Tony replied with a shrug. “Mr. Leeds.” He held out his hand for Ned to shake. _Firm grip._

Peter watched the gesture with eager eyes, like he knew his turn was next.

“Peter.” Instead of Mr. Parker. He hoped the small detail registered to Peter, just some small hint that he was cared for. Tony did remember him. Always would.

Tony was on his third handshake with Peter, and he felt so sneaky and devious about it. Keeping track like notches on a bedpost. He was so touch starved for Peter that shaking his hand felt like getting to second base. Hell, maybe even third. _He’s alive. I’ll take what I can get._

“Good luck,” Tony said pointedly. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you two come up with.”

The boys scampered away, clutching their photos.

Tony sighed while he watched them go, and then he sighed again when he saw Pepper approaching him. He knew that look.

“Tony.” Pepper made it sound like a greeting, an accusation, and an insult all in one.

“How do you do that?” Tony marvelled.

“I’ve known you for twenty years.”

“Fair.”

“Why are you so interested in that kid? The principal said you spoke to him last time, too. Is that the one you manufactured this whole thing for? You know, I knew you were up to something. I didn’t think it was this.”

So much for being discreet. That principal was a rat. Tony had half a mind to knock the donation down a few thousand just for blowing his cover.

“He’s smart, Pepper. Mr. Parker and Mr. Leeds both. We’d be stupid not to recruit them. Science fair or not.”

Pepper frowned. “How do you know that?”

“I—” Tony began. “I check out science blogs occasionally. YouTube channels. It eats up travel time. They had some promising content.”

“Right.”

_She’s not convinced._

“What’s the problem?” Tony asked. “Talking to high school kids isn’t a crime.”

“You’re technically right. It depends on what you say,” Pepper replied. “And, what you’re thinking.”

Tony grumbled. God, no wonder he’d made her CEO. Everyone was glass to her. It was convenient for business purposes, but when it came to interfering with his life, it was exhausting. She saw right through him.

“What if I said that I promise I’m not up to no good?”

Pepper sighed. “You could’ve just recruited them individually, Tony. You didn’t have to make me jump through all these hoops and give away all this funding.”

_Safe._

“I know, Pep, but isn’t it fun being extravagant for no reason? Plus, we have two gems with Ned and Pete. If we just picked them out of the pool, other companies would be chomping at the bit to find out why they’re so special. If we cover up their worth by making it a contest—fair obviously, they could lose, and prove me wrong. Don’t give me that look—then other recruiters won’t be competing with us.”

Pepper shook her head. “That is actually a really good strategy.”

“You say it like you’re surprised.”


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony goes to Midtown High School to check out the mini expo he organized, and to see Peter again.

Tony had acronyms on the brain for the rest of the week after the announcement he made at Midtown High School. Pretty Endearing Teenage Engineering Recruit. P.E.T.E.R. _Way too cheesy. Okay we get it you love Peter. You don't need to name a bunch of stuff after him. But I want to. No. Stop. Keep thinking._

Manufacturing Alternate Timelines To Help Earth Win. End War? M.A.T.T.H.E.W. _Tempting, but a little long and way too serious._

Tony kept thinking of interesting names to call his new glasses while he actually created them. He had J scour the web for baby names, but nothing sat with him right. They were all either names he hated, or names that didn't turn out a decent acronym. He wanted something catchy and clever, but not cheesy or childish. Or so alliterative. This was why he stuck to the sciences.

Pepper had warned him that he would have to make visits to all the schools he had donated to which cramped his style but wasn’t completely unbearable considering thinking about acronyms for his security system was about the most challenging thing on his plate. Word had gotten out about the mini expo that Midtown was taking part in, and he realized that the flaw in his brilliant plan was that he’d concealed Midtown’s importance by giving money to several schools, but had gone on to offer them an opportunity to compete for tuition money and internships, and had given away almost six hundred thousand dollars in private cash in the heat of the moment.

So because he liked digging himself into holes, he had no choice but to give the same routine at a few other schools. Luckily no one had questioned him about his hasty decisions since he did have a history of generosity, and Pepper was glad he was doing more of the public work instead of shutting himself completely away in the lab. And Tony could admit to himself that he needed things to occupy his time with since there wasn’t any real possibility of seeing Peter frequently.

He could only build so many suits when he’d perfected them, and he could only invent so many AIs when J.A.R.V.I.S. was back and better than ever. E.D.I.T.H. or whatever the hell it was going to be called was a work in progress, but still not that difficult to recreate. No Avengers-level threats needed his attention, and most of the friends he was used to having weren’t in his life anymore, so what did he really have to do except donate money, visit schools, and host science fairs? It felt like a vacation.

It was April when Tony decided to announce his plan, so that gave all the students participating about a month to work on their projects, and then they’d present them at their respective schools throughout the second week of May. It also gave Tony a month to overthink and obsess over Stark Industries' current business model, and it gave him an opportunity to host Rhodey, Bruce, Pepper, Natasha, and Happy for dinner which helped keep him sane...mostly. By the time May rolled around, Tony was desperate for any interaction he could have with Peter at all, even if it was eye contact from across the room. The separation was driving him nuts.

\---

Tony’s PR team and a few volunteer judges from the company and NYU formed the panel that would decide whose project won the competition. For uniformity’s sake, the same panel had to judge at every school. The winners from each school wouldn’t have to compete again in a second round because Tony didn’t want to go through the whole routine again. Besides, it was nearing the end of the schoolyear, and the kids had other things to do. Seven schools, so seven winning teams which meant fourteen new interns and another seven hundred thousand dollars. A small price to pay for love.

The panel travelled to the various schools, beginning on a Monday and ending on a Friday. A couple of the days would have the judges going to two schools per day instead of just one.

Tony had it the easiest out of everyone on his team since he used the Iron Man suit to fly around Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the surrounding areas. It brought a new level of excitement to the event, not just because of the obvious, but also because he was showing off his new suit for the first time. Most importantly, it meant he didn't have to carpool with a bunch of people.

Midtown High School happened to be the fifth out of seven schools on his itinerary, so he got to visit there on a Thursday.

In the meantime, he saw some of the things created and displayed at the other schools, and he was glad he’d decided to extend the competition beyond a ploy to spend time with Peter. Getting the opportunity to host the collection of bright kids at Stark Industries for the summer was gratifying and exactly what he wanted the company's image to be. He was a futurist after all. Most of the kids would excel and have the opportunity to come back and have a career with the company. Tony figured at least one or two of them would’ve tried their luck at Hammer Industries if it hadn’t gone bankrupt. _Too bad, maybe in another lifetime, Justin. That’s what you get for being a dick._

When he arrived in the parking lot at Midtown High School, he retracted the suit into his nanoparticle unit, and looked around, taking a moment to appreciate the view of the school. He’d picked Peter up so many times—whether as the driver or the passenger, sitting in the back while Happy drove them around. Sometimes Tony would just go for the ride to pick Peter up and drop him off for patrol. _God, I miss you, kid._ He was tired of being the only one able to indulge in his memories. He wanted to get Peter back so they could start creating new ones.

He walked into the gym with his head held high. For this sort of thing, he would’ve worn a suit, but Peter had said he always liked it when he wore band t-shirts with slacks and a sports jacket, so he went with that. Black slacks with a white pinstripe down the side of the leg, and a B-52’s shirt—he’d been relieved to find out that band still existed. Unfortunately, E.D.I.T.H. wasn’t quite ready to smarten up the look, so he settled for regular shades.

As much as he wanted to go straight up to Ned’s and Peter’s table to see what they’d done, he knew he couldn’t be playing favourites with so much at stake. Undoubtedly, the dynamic duo would have submitted the high-tensile-strength polymer cable that Peter used for webbing, and it would win. Tony had been playing around with it in his own lab while he created Peter’s suits, but something about Peter’s way with it always made his yield just a touch better. He missed talking shop with the boy.

He was attacked by Mr. Morita yet again as soon as the man had laid eyes on him which was fine. It gave him a chance to discreetly surveil the room, so he knew where to avoid. Once again he thanked Peter for being so obvious about everything because the boy was jumping around, practically vibrating with excitement. Ned wasn’t a slick wingman either because he kept glancing over.

_Me too, kid. Hold your horses. I’ll be over in a minute._

Tony made a show of checking out what other kids had created. Some teams had actually made fake volcanoes and vegetable batteries which made him laugh more than anything. He guessed those were the rich kids who didn’t have to fight for a place anywhere, and so they didn't have to try. It was actually a good thing, because the other students had more of a chance to win the prize money that they actually needed.

He hadn’t exactly provided a theme which was typical procedure where science fairs were concerned, but he figured if he was going to be taking on interns and giving them a decent amount of coin, they could handle thinking of something without the guidelines of a theme.

He didn’t see much that made his blood buzz which was simultaneously disappointing and satisfying. Disappointing because he wanted to see some cool ideas and maybe give the kids some pointers on how to take it to the next level, and satisfying because it meant that Peter and Ned would win.

Some kids approached him while he made his rounds and thanked him for the opportunity and the money. Other kids whispered as he walked by. Some almost fainted when he stopped to chat with them. It was endearing, and he was used to it.

And then, finally.

“What do we have here?”

“Hi, Mr. Stark,” Peter greeted.

Ned beamed at him. “Hello, sir.”

"Tony, please," Tony corrected.

Tony took off his sunglasses and stowed them in his front pocket. He glanced from Peter to the tri-fold board behind him and probably looked like a cartoon character since what he and Ned had designed for the expo was definitely not the webbing.

He repeated his initial question. "What's this?"

“It’s a nanomaterial filter for effective dissolved heavy-metal and organic contaminant removal from water,” Peter recited.

Tony smiled. “So you made a Brita?”

Ned didn’t know what to say. “I—yes?”

“What?” Peter said. “No, it’s not a _Brita_. We started working on this the day we found out about the contest. Our filter can remove more than 98% of pollutants from water including lead and mercury.”

Tony laughed at Peter’s indignant expression. “I’m not much of a chemist, myself, but I’m sure I’ll be able to keep up. Tell me everything.”

Peter dove into explaining the procedure in excruciating detail. How long it took to stir the compounds, how thick the cellular membrane had to be for optimal adsorption of particles, and where they’d purchased their chemicals, and how cost-effective it would be. Tony hated that he wasn’t much listening to what Peter was saying so much as he was just listening to his voice. It had been so long since he’d gotten to hear it.

Tony was grateful when it was Ned’s turn to talk and answer questions. He could tell Peter was dying to butt in and show off, though.

“You boys have given me a lot to think about,” Tony mused. “Do you think your chances are good?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lots of people have good projects," Peter replied.

“What would you have done if not this?” Tony hinted. _Webbing?_

Peter and Ned glanced at each other. _Bingo._

“Well,” Ned’s voice cracked. “We had other options, but this was the best idea if we wanted something that would help the environment and be interesting.”

“Right. Sure,” Tony agreed. “What about you, Pete?”

Peter had been looking at Ned while he answered, but as soon as his name was mentioned, his eyes flashed to Tony’s.

“Oh,” Peter said. “Uhm. What was the question?”

Tony deliberated. He couldn’t remember the question either.

“Hey, Penis!”

_Ah, Flash. It’s been too long. Not._

The boy approached Tony where he was standing in front of Ned's and Peter’s project.

“Mr. Stark, you gotta come check out my station. Trust me, it’ll be way more worth your time than this.” Flash gestured vaguely at the table.

Tony frowned when he saw Peter look down at the ground with his fist balled.

“Do you hear something?” Tony asked both Ned and Peter without looking at Flash. “I don’t know.” Tony looked around the room. “Just this little buzzing in my ear…”

Peter snorted. “That’s Flash.”

Tony finally turned to look at the kid. “Oh, dear God.” Tony put a hand over his heart. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Flash glared.

“What were you saying?”

“You should come see my project instead of playing favourites with these losers,” Flash said smugly. He crossed his arms.

Tony sighed. “I should, should I? What if I disqualified you for poor sportsmanship? Would I have to come check out your Mentos in Coke, then?”

Flash opened his mouth to speak.

“Don't talk." Tony suggested. “Think twice next time before you talk shit about your classmates. Especially in front of me. Now run along.” He shooed the boy away.

Flash nodded meekly, glared at Peter and Ned, and went back to his own table.

Tony didn’t relish in making a teenage boy look so dejected, but Peter looked happy, so that was all he needed to know.

“That was awesome!” Ned and Peter started on their special handshake.

Tony couldn’t remember it exactly right, so he couldn’t say for sure if it was the same or different. Still looked cool. _Maybe I’ll start one with Rhodey…I mean Cowboy? No. Rhodey. Definitely not compromising on my nicknames.  
_

Peter smiled sheepishly at Tony. “Thanks, Mr. Stark. I mean, Tony.”

“You don’t think I was too hard on him?” Tony asked.

“No, no way,” Peter said. “He calls me names like every day, so that was—it was perfect. Thank you.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. Anyway, catch you guys later. I can’t play favourites as they say.” He rolled his eyes playfully, took his sunglasses back out of his pocket and walked away to peruse the other tables in the gym. He casually glanced at Flash’s work while he walked by, noting that it wasn’t terrible, but definitely incomparable to Ned’s and Peter’s Brita—Peter could gripe all he wanted, that’s what Tony was calling it.

Tony consulted with the judges while they deliberated, and although he probably could’ve vetoed their decision, he wanted to avoid doing so. He tried to refrain from giving too much input either, saying, “there were some strong candidates, but the ones that stood out to me were the nanomaterial water filter, the paintable touchscreen, and the exoskeleton prototype for paralysis aid”. Peter and Ned had strong competition against their fellow nerds, and Tony knew it would be a close contest. Tony was tempted to make a last-minute adjustment to include the runners up as interns, but he hadn’t done so at the other schools, and even he had rules to follow. Apparently, people took the science fair business really seriously.

The students, parents, and teachers were milling around nervously while they waited for the results. Tony’s heart panged when he saw May come in and hug Peter, ruffling his hair and no doubt congratulating him on having a good idea whether he won or not. Tony was glad Peter had May, but he’d hoped that this timeline might’ve spared Peter the pain of losing his parents. Evidently not.

Tony had the joy of announcing the winners. The judges acted like they were running some sort of clandestine operation when they handed him the folded paper that would tell him whether his plan had worked, of if he’d have to find another way to get Peter in his orbit.

He took a breath and opened the paper, relieved to see what he’d hoped would be on there. _Peter Parker and Ned Leeds for their nanomaterial filter for dissolved heavy-metal and organic contaminant removal from water._

Tony tapped the microphone that had been set up for him. “Good afternoon, everyone.”

Tony raised his eyebrows when the entire gym settled down and turned to give him their full attention. “At ease,” he joked.

“I’ll go ahead and get straight to the point,” Tony began. “Obviously we’re at a school for science and technology, so it doesn’t surprise me that everyone, save one or two gems, brought their A game. Out of a plethora of nerds, we had to pick the ultimate team to win, which isn’t to say there are any losers here today. I’m sure you’ll all go on to do great things. Anyway, without further ado, Peter and Ned, congratulations on your mouthful of a science project. The nanomaterial filter for dissolved heavy-metal”—Tony inhaled dramatically before saying the rest—“and organic contaminant removal from water.”

Tony watched Peter’s face the entire time he was speaking, being completely obvious about his lack of interest in literally everyone else in the room. Peter stared back at him even before he was announced the winner, and after that his face bloomed into a smile that Tony felt like he’d been missing for ages.

“Come on up here,” Tony instructed.

He waited patiently while Peter hugged May and Ned hugged his parents.

Tony clapped them both on the back. “Refresher, you’ve just won a hundred thousand dollars between the two of you and a summer internship at Stark Industries. How do you feel?” He turned the microphone to Ned first, doing his best impression of a game show host.

“This is so great! Hi Mom.” Ned waved from the stage.

Tony directed the microphone to Peter. “How about you, kid?”

“Thank you so much, I just wanted to tell everyone they did a great job, and there were a lot of cool projects that I wish I had thought of, but I’m really happy anyway. This means a lot to me, so thank you.”

“Great sportsmanship. I love the humility,” Tony announced. “Okay, that’s all from me. Thanks for coming out, everybody.” He held up a peace sign and herded Peter and Ned off the stage toward Pepper.

“Congratulations, boys,” Pepper offered. “I’m gonna take down your contact information, so we can send you a welcome package to go through. It has all the details of what you can expect come July when you start, what information you’ll need to provide, things like background checks and copies of your identification. Any other questions you have can be directed to our Human Resources department.”

“Wow,” Peter breathed. “This is so cool. I can’t believe we won. I seriously can’t believe it. I thought for sure the touchscreen or the exoskeleton. Wow.”

Tony beamed at him. Peter had pegged the same contenders as he had. “Good eye, kid. Those were the other choices.”

Peter nodded eagerly. “So, what now? Do we just like, show up in July and see you then?”

“Oh right. I almost forgot.” Tony said. “There’s other winners from different schools, and I’m hosting a little get together at the tower this weekend so you can all meet. Those details will be sent to you along with the welcome package.”

“Sweet mother of Jesus,” Ned said wistfully.

“St-Stark Tower?” Peter asked. “We get to go to Stark Tower. For a party?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Peter admitted.

“Don’t say anything, then. Just show up,” Tony teased.

Tony caught Pepper staring at him pointedly. “All right, hooligans, it’s time for me to go wheels up.”

“Oh,” Peter said. “Okay. Thank you, Mr. Stark.” He'd regressed into calling him Mr. Stark again instead of Tony. Another similarity between this timeline and the other. Peter was a respectful young man.

“Yeah,” Ned added. “This is like, the best day of my entire life.”

Tony smirked. “I wouldn’t go that far, but glad you’re pleased. I’ll catch you two at the party. Yeah?”

“Should we bring anything?” Peter blurted.

Pepper answered for Tony. “It will all be in the invitation, Mr. Parker.”

Tony eyed Pepper, trying his best to stow his exasperation. He’d wanted to answer and make a joke about bringing a stuffed animal and sleeping bag for a sleepover. _On second thought, maybe it’s a good thing she stopped that joke._

With that, Tony and Pepper walked away leaving a starstruck Ned and Peter in their midst. Tony felt the familiar ache return once he was out of the gym and away from Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Tony standing up to Flash on Peter's behalf an overdone trope? Do I include it in most of my Starker stories? Probably and yes, but I will never stop.


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party for the interns.

Tony made sure his team pulled out all the stops for the party. Catering that included a full array of cuisine. From cheeseburgers, to sushi, to pasta, to tacos. The dessert table was a complete vision, all imported. Goodie bags organized on a table behind a locked case hinted to the guests what was in store for them. Each bag had a Stark tablet, SI merch in the sizes indicated in the paperwork the prospective interns had filed, and most importantly, gift cards for all the fast food restaurants in walking distance of Stark Industries—including Starbucks which they would desperately need when the internship began. Tony had even requested that a DJ be booked.

Once upon a time, he might’ve reserved such extravagance to host the Avengers, investors, or maybe to have a birthday party for himself, but now he was doing it for a bunch of teenagers. It was probably premature to spend so much money on kids he didn’t know would even make good interns—performing well in one science fair on one project could’ve been a fluke. Not to mention, they'd been on teams of two; it was impossible to tell who did most of the work until both kids were separated.

Tony didn’t mind showing the kids a good time, though. Even if he had to pay for it, it was nice to see grateful people with nothing but smiles for him. He was only human.

Besides the interns, Tony also invited the department heads who had joined him at the schools to present his idea for the mini expo. This way he wouldn’t have to bear the entire brunt of the conversation. Pepper, Happy, Bruce, Rhodey, and Natasha were also welcome. Not only because he needed bodies in the room so it wouldn’t be him and fourteen kids, but also because each of his closest friends could offer the recruits unique insight into the business and into potential careers. Pepper was a CEO, Happy was the head of security, Bruce was a doctor several times over, Rhodey was a colonel and a superhero, and Natasha was a field operative for the biggest intelligence agency in the country.

The invitations provided to the students in their welcome packages indicated that the occasion was business casual. There were also individualized keycodes for all of them so they could access the elevator up to the penthouse. And to answer Peter's question, they didn't have to bring anything except themselves.

Tony busied himself in the lab while all the guests arrived; he wanted to make his entrance once everyone was there. Plus, he figured the kids would be less nervous to mingle if they weren’t under Tony Stark’s eye. Let them get comfortable in the environment before he came out and shook things up.

J.A.R.V.I.S. dutifully announced when Peter arrived. He had done his hair; instead of the wavy brown locks falling haphazardly across his forehead, he had them slicked back and parted at the side. With his slightly too big sports jacket and black high-tops, he looked a vision. Every bit as handsome as Tony remembered.

Tony had completed Marks 1 and 2 of the Spidersuit, and he was now perfecting the web combinations for the Mark 3 which meant it was nearly done. He wanted the kid to have a lot of options.

“What the hell are you doing?” Pepper interrupted.

“What’s it look like?” Tony deflected. Shit. It wasn’t normal behaviour to be working on a suit for Spider-Man. He didn't have a good answer for it.

“You’re working on a suit…with a spider on it?”

The look of confusion on her face panicked him for a moment. Was she implying that working on a suit for Spider-Man was ridiculous because he didn’t exist? Or was she simply wondering why he was doing it now, or at all? It occurred to him that maybe Spider-Man didn’t exist. _Why haven’t I thought of that before?_

“Yeah…” Tony said. “What’s the problem?”

“Since when are you in business with Spider-Man?”

Tony concealed the instant relief he felt at her saying the words. Relief not only because crafting three suits had cost a pretty penny, and it would’ve been a shame to toss them out because of his poor timeline-assimilating skills. Also, because Peter having super strength and using it to fight crime meant that he was more mature than the average 17-year-old.

It was one of the things Tony told himself before he finally felt like he was allowed to love Peter back. After all, if Tony was older, richer, and more experienced, it helped balance the scale a bit if Peter was stronger. That wasn’t even considering that Tony was Peter’s boss, too. If he knew that Peter could fight him, it made things slightly less skewed. Of course, he knew what power over someone could do. Even if Peter could fight him, he wouldn’t. So that left him back at square one. _Wait, so what exactly did I tell myself was okay about loving a 17-year-old?_

“I’m not. Technically. Not yet,” Tony explained. “Just a bit of a pet project.”

“Right, well do you mind leaving it for when I don’t have a room full of forty people wondering where you are?”

“J was supposed to tell me to go out once everyone got here.”

“I did sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said. “Twice.”

“Shit. What time is it?” Tony wondered.

“It’s 7:30.” Pepper supplied. “The party started an hour ago.”

“Okay. I’ll be right out.” Tony cringed. “And J.A.R.V.I.S.? Next time try a little harder, yeah?”

“My apologies.”

Tony did a quick once-over of himself in his computer monitor before exiting the lab and making the fashionably late entrance he’d intended to—well, sort of.

As soon as he walked out of the lab, he was able to look down on the party taking place a couple levels below. He descended the staircase that bordered the area and immediately caught Peter’s eye.

Tony smiled at him, holding his gaze for a moment before turning his attention to the three tables full of food. The DJ was playing something instrumental that wasn’t really hitting the spot, but that wasn’t important.

“Where the hell you been, man?” Rhodey greeted. “I can only do so much Q and A before I run out of jokes to tell.”

Tony laughed. “Is War Machine intimidated by a few teenagers?”

“Yes, I am,” Rhodey admitted.

“Ohh, Rhodey. Watch and learn,” Tony teased.

“Rhodey?” The man questioned. “New nickname?”

“Take it or leave it.”

Tony signaled the DJ to settle down, so he could talk. “Good evening everyone. I guess the first question of the evening is how the hell did you get in here?”

Lame joke, but people laughed. Tony took a moment to wonder if he was actually funny or if people just laughed because of who he was. When it came to his small circle of friends, they were all tough nuts to crack, and they usually gave him a laugh, so maybe he was funny.

“Uhh, anyway.” Tony shook his head. He was way too easily distracted. Leave it to him to dissociate while addressing a room full of people. “Obviously help yourself to the food. We got a couple weeks worth there in case we have to bunker down through a natural disaster, and feel free to request the DJ to play literally anything else besides what he’s been playing—no offense, buddy—and yeah, most importantly congratulations on being the chosen ones. Go ahead and bug my guy Rhodey over there if you have any questions. He loves kids.”

Tony nodded once to signify that his little speech was over and made his way over to the bar. He’d hired a bartender too even though it was probably useless for a room of working professionals and high school kids. More for him, then.

From that vantage point, he observed all the mingling that was going on between the teenagers and the adults. He quirked his lips when he saw the contrast between the guests. Pepper was talking to Bruce and a pair of girls he didn’t recognize. Natasha was fielding questions from a small group of unblinking boys. Rhodey was being bombarded to his delight.

He didn’t have to wonder what he looked like next to Peter from an outsider’s perspective. Thirty years difference. Tony had mostly gotten over it. After he’d given in to Peter’s heartfelt confession, there was really no point in dwelling. It was done, and they loved each other, and Tony thought maybe he deserved a bit of happiness after all he’d been through, or at the very least, he didn’t want to reject Peter and hurt him. Now that he was here, though, the guilt was coming back. What had he really done to deserve Peter in this reality? Donate a couple bucks?

Tony knocked back his drink. He was debating on a second one when Peter approached him.

“Hi, Mr. Stark.” Peter smiled shyly.

Tony’s need for a drink disappeared. “Hey, Pete. Thought I told you to call me Tony.”

“Right.” Peter nodded.

“What can I do for you?” Tony asked.

Peter’s lack of a game plan was written all over his face.

Tony guiltily noted that if he really wanted Peter back in his life so badly, it wouldn’t be difficult. He imagined that all it would take was asking Peter to stay after everyone else left. If Peter was anything similar to what he was used to…that’s all it would take. Just like that, he wanted the drink again. He couldn’t do that. _Not like this._

“I don’t know.” Peter shrugged. “You just looked lonely over here by yourself. Do you want me to get you some food? There’s lots there.” Peter looked up at him hopefully.

Tony sighed. It would be way too fucking easy.

“That’s all right, kid. Thanks, though,” Tony said. “I got food right here.” He gestured to the bartender for another.

“Oh, okay.”

“I sort of went overboard with the catering.” Tony waved with one hand and accepted his drink with the other. “I didn’t know what you guys all liked, and better to have more than not enough. And this DJ is not the best, admittedly. I’m used to entertaining a different crew.” Tony rambled. “Don’t really know what kids like.” Sure, his staff members had technically been responsible for planning the party, but it was still his fault. He'd requested a lot of what was there, and he'd gotten some weird looks for it too, probably since no one was used to him giving input when it came to low-level things like hosting a welcome party for interns.

Peter listened to everything he said with wide eyes as if Tony was bestowing years of wisdom on him. When Tony though about it, it was probably the most intimate thing he’d said to Peter so far. Admitting he didn’t know how to do something. _Just like riding a bike, Mr. Parker. You always knew how to get me to open up._

“Well, I think it’s great,” Peter said. “But I don’t know how much that says about me. The bar for impressing me is sort of low.”

Tony laughed at that. “So, Pete. Tell me more about yourself besides your incredibly low standards.”

Peter raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you don’t want to hear about me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay,” Peter decided. “Well, uh, I don’t know where to start.”

Tony huffed and resisted saying, “at the beginning”. The joke was low-hanging fruit even for him.

“I’m sure we’ll get to know each other when you start the internship,” Tony said. “I bet you can think of something by then.”

Peter laughed nervously.

“Where do you plan on going to school?” Tony sipped his drink.

“I applied to MIT and NYU,” Peter answered immediately. “But I haven’t decided if I wanted to move states, yet.”

School was a safe and comfortable topic for Peter. _Noted._

“Nice,” Tony assessed. Pepper caught his eye from across the room. Great. She was going to be up his ass about this as soon as she got the chance. Why couldn’t she just let him interact with Peter without sticking her nose in things?

Peter followed his eyes to Pepper and frowned.

Tony noticed right away and huffed a laugh. He was used to Peter being skeptical about the friendship. It had taken the poor kid a few weeks to work up to asking if Tony and Pepper shared a past together.

“Between you and me I think she’s got a thing for Dr. Banner, over there. They’ve been chatting the whole time we have.”

“Miss Potts?” Peter asked.

“That’s right. I think they’d make a good couple. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Peter admitted. “Um, to be honest, I kind of thought you guys were…”

“Nope.”

“Cool,” Peter said. “I mean…yeah.”

“She’s mad at me for being late. I’ll tell you that much.”

“Late?” Peter questioned. “What were you working on?”

_Gosh, he knows me so well._

“It’s a secret,” Tony said quietly.

Peter nodded understandingly.

Tony smirked. “Where’s your friend, by the way?”

Peter looked around before answering. “He’s super excited about the food options. He might even write you a personal thank-you note for it.”

“Shouldn’t you be over there with him? You’re always hungry.” Tony froze. Shit. The booze had made him a little too loose-lipped. “I mean, you’re a teenage boy. Active, I bet. I figured you’d be devouring the Italian food. That’s your favourite.” Shit. “It’s a favourite.”

Peter furrowed his brows and gave Tony a wry smile. “Maybe you should cool it with the whiskey, sir.”

Tony didn’t blush easily, but getting reprimanded for his drinking habits by Peter did the trick. _I’m already fucking this up. He thinks I’m a miserable, old drunk. Aren’t you, though?_

Tony nodded once and looked away at the rest of the guests again. He’d got this far in his plan only to strike out with the kid because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He could practically feel the nightmares he was going to have later. Peter slipping away. Maybe not into dust this time, but still, away.

Peter seemed to notice that his words hadn’t landed well with Tony. “I’m not hungry, but I do like Italian food a lot, actually. So that’s a good call,” Peter said. “My aunt’s Italian, you know, but she doesn’t really cook traditional stuff.”

“I see.”

Tony noticed that a few of the other students were eyeing him impatiently, wondering when he was going to be done with Peter. Pepper was on her way over, too.

“Hi Tony, Mr. Parker.” Of course, she remembered Peter’s name. It was supposed to be his thing with Peter—showing how special he was that Tony knew his name after hearing it once—but Pepper was showing him up. Probably a good thing to keep his ego in check, though, since why should Peter feel special just because someone remembered his name? Even if it was Tony Stark. As far as Tony was concerned, everyone should know Peter’s name.

Once again, Tony found himself dissociating with poor timing.

“Hello Pepper,” Tony said.

“What are you two discussing?” Pepper wondered.

Peter looked at her with wide eyes.

_So it’s not just me he’s got wide eyes for. That’s…disappointing._

“The food spread,” Tony supplied. “Peter’s favourite is Italian.”

“Right…” Pepper frowned. “I was just chatting with a young woman named Raven, and she’d love to talk to you about some things I think you’ll find very interesting.”

“What’s more interesting than Italian food?” Tony winked at Peter. _Stop making jokes about the food. It's done._

Pepper sighed. “Let’s trade places. You go talk to Raven, and I’ll chat with Peter.”

“Fine,” Tony allowed, “but let the record show I had my elbow twisted. I was fine right here.”

“Go, Tony.”

Tony took a last look at Peter who looked disappointed to see him go. Maybe he didn’t strike out as bad as he thought, and maybe Peter would notice he left the rest of drink behind.

The conversation with Raven wasn’t as bad as Tony had anticipated. It wasn’t that he was unhappy to speak to the present company since they were there for a reason, but it was painful to be so close to Peter without being _close_ to Peter.

All the shared lab time, the drives, the suit demos, the patrols, and the dates were all in Tony’s memory which now constituted his imagination. What he’d experienced didn’t exist, at least not to Peter, to anyone but him. When he’d first joined forces with the alternate version of himself, he’d thought that the body was a blessing because it hadn’t endured so much stress, and anxiety hadn’t worn on his mind, either. The closest this body had been to space was trying to outrace Obadiah to get his abomination of a suit to ice up. This body hadn’t encountered any gods or aliens, and this body hadn’t kissed Peter Parker yet. But now that he’d been living this life for over a month, he was starting to feel bits and pieces of the anxiety he thought he’d banished return. The body wasn’t impervious to his battered mind, after all.

It didn’t help that he kept thinking he remembered things about Peter, meanwhile he was just forgetting to keep his mouth shut. The whole point of this was getting to know Peter all over again, from scratch. No apartment ambush to recruit him for his fight with Cap. No monitoring Spider-Man’s activities through F.R.I.D.A.Y. and E.D.I.T.H both. No Google searches. If he was going to win Peter over again, he wanted to do it the right way with no cheat codes—besides using his wealth and connections to get Peter in his vicinity, but that was done with.

His anxiety was caused mostly by the fact that instead of his previous knowledge of Peter helping him, it was just ruining him. He wasn’t his usual smooth, confident self. He was turning into a bumbling, nervous wreck.

_‘It’s your favourite’ ‘You’re always hungry.’ You’re an idiot, Tony. Five minutes into the conversation, and he brought up your drinking._

It was a relief, though. As shy and starstruck as Peter usually was in his presence, he also wasn’t scared to give him shit. Peter always called him out when he wasn’t being fair or reasonable, or taking care of himself. The hint of it that he’d seen tonight only made him miss their intimacy even more. It wasn’t fair that he had to make his rounds and entertain teenagers and employees that he didn’t care about intimately. None of them was Peter.

“How you doin’, Tony? You seem a little bugged out,” Bruce commented.

Tony looked at his friend and sighed. He had always been a touch taller than Bruce even before, but with the way the man huddled in on himself, the difference had been noticeable. Bruce in this reality didn’t slouch or shrink away from people. He stood up straight and confidently—as he should when he had as many PhD’s as he did.

“Hey Brucey,” Tony replied. “I don’t think I like parties as much as I used to.”

Bruce nodded. “Did you really like them before? Or was it just something you did.”

Tony pondered for a moment. He could speak for both sides of himself. “Just something I did. Can’t even tell you why, honestly. They were fun, but nothing like what it felt like to be alone in my lab.”

“Agreed.”

Tony quirked his lips at Bruce. Nobody quite understood how science called to him as much as Bruce did—except Peter. _Just let it go, Tony. You saw him already. You don’t need to keep thinking about him and torturing yourself. Yes I do, shut up. Let me have this._

“Have you spoken to anyone interesting tonight?” Tony wondered.

“Yeah, actually.” Bruce adjusted his glasses. “Couple kids. Ned and Walter.”

“I’ve spoken to Ned, too,” Tony offered.

“Got a hell of an appetite,” Bruce commented.

Tony frowned and looked around to place Ned. As usual, he and Peter were whispering together.

“I’m just glad someone’s eating.” Tony shrugged.

“You can have someone pack up the rest of the food and hand it out on the street.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too.”

Bruce nodded. “I saw you over by the bar talking to someone. Who was he?”

“Oh, that’s Peter Parker,” Tony explained. “Actually, he was with Ned in the expo. They made a water filter.”

“Smart kids.”

“Yup.”

Tony could see that Bruce had something else to say. “What, Banner? Spit it out.”

Bruce shook his head. “You had a funny look on your face while you were talking to him, and you were talking to him for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“I have a feeling he’s the smartest one here. Maybe someone you were hoping to recruit undercover.”

Tony inclined his head. “Pepper say something?”

“What? No.” Bruce denied.

“Then you must be the smartest one here, Banny, because you’re absolutely right.” There was no harm in Bruce knowing that since it was the truth, even if just partially.

Bruce seemed satisfied with that. Guessing right on the first try usually kept people from digging for more.

“Maybe you should go talk to him,” Tony suggested. “Have a little meeting of the minds.”

“Yeah,” Bruce agreed. “I think I’ll go see what all the fuss is about.”

Tony took the opportunity to go to the DJ to request a song that he was hoping might cheer him up. Maybe not quite appropriate for a professional gathering, but appropriate for his mood.

“Hey, buddy,” Tony said. “I need a little something to spice up the atmosphere in here.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Stark. What are you thinking?”

“You got any Queen in there? If you say no, you’re fired.”

The look on the guy’s face made Tony nervous.

“Uhh. Queen, you said?”

Tony nodded once. “You know, like Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites the Dust?”

“Ohh.” The DJ practically sagged in relief. “Freddie and the Queens. I got some of that.”

“Freddie and the—excuse me, what?” Tony frowned. Apparently, his sweep of the net looking for differences in pop culture hadn’t been thorough enough. He was going to have to dedicate a good few days on that. Oh well, at least it was something to do while he waited for Peter’s internship to start.

The DJ didn’t say anything more, so Tony just told him to roll it. He took his phone out for a quick search, though, just because he couldn’t hold this one off.

_My gosh, Freddie is still alive._

Tony’s mood was drastically improved after learning that information. He could learn to live with that god awful name if it meant that there was even more music to hear from them.

Tony did a lap of the room to talk with a few more kids. This way he was justified in making his way back to Peter. He earned another encounter.

Peter had approached him when he was at the bar, so Tony figured it was his turn to start the conversation. Peter was still glued to Ned’s side. Tony realized too late that chatting up his best friend would probably be an effective way to get in Peter’s good graces; he probably shouldn’t have left Ned for last or just spoken to him now that he was with Peter. Tony was seriously going to have to re-evaluate his game after this. He was used to his level of overthinking when it came to the hero business, but winning over Peter wasn’t supposed to use so much brainpower.

“Hey, boys. Enjoying the party?”

“It’s amazing,” Ned replied. “The food is fantastic.”

Tony nodded. “Wait until you see the goodie bags.”

Peter and Ned looked at each other wistfully.

“We didn’t get a chance to talk much at the expo,” Tony began. “We were cut a little short by that kid...Flesh was it?”

Peter snorted. “Flash.”

“Right,” Tony remarked.

“What did you want to talk about?” Peter prompted. “Did you want to pitch a new name for it besides Brita?”

Tony laughed. “No, I wanted to ask you about what other ideas you had. Was the filter the first thing that came to mind?”

Tony watched their faces carefully after he answered the question, and they didn’t look as surprised this time. It was as if they’d talked about and corroborated their stories. Tony felt like a complete imbecile when it popped into his head that _of course_ they wouldn’t have used the webbing in the science fair because it would’ve been totally obvious that they had a connection to Spider-Man. Tony added that realization to the long list he’d been forming throughout the night.

_1\. Don’t assume you know anything about this reality because obviously you’re an arrogant idiot._

_2\. Stop dissociating in the middle of speaking._

_3\. You need to work on your game._

_4\. Learn more about pop-culture._

_5\. Stop saying stupid things._

“Actually no, sir,” Ned replied. “We thought of the filter first thing.”

Peter nodded while Ned spoke. “Yeah.”

“Right, you did say that you started working on it the day I announced it.” Tony said.

“You remember that?” Peter blurted. “You really are a genius, aren’t you?”

Tony raised his eyebrows at the outburst and so did Ned. Peter blushed crimson.

“I have a good memory.” Tony shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

“So, before,” Peter recovered. “You said you were working on a secret project. Can you give us any hints?”

Tony adored Peter for giving him the intro he needed to start talking about Spider-Man. The sooner he opened up about it, the sooner he could get Peter in the lab for fittings, and the sooner they could bond.

“Sure,” Tony said easily. “I trust you guys.”

Ned and Peter stepped closer to him.

“You saw my new suit, right?” Tony said.

They both nodded.

“Let’s just say I’m working on a suit for someone else.”

“Who?” Ned asked, fascinated.

Tony smirked. “I’ll give you eight guesses. Feel free to search the web if you need help.”

Tony could see the moment it clicked for Peter.

“Spider-Man?” Peter spoke in a hush. “You’re making a suit for Spider-Man?”

“Holy shit.” Ned blanched.

“First I have to figure out who he is.” Tony hinted. “Then, we’ll see how it goes.”

“I can’t—I don’t know what to say,” Peter breathed. “Your suit is already like the coolest thing in history…but the Spider-Man suit inspired by your design…It’s probably beautiful. Is it amazing. Can we see it?”

Tony felt himself get a little cocky at the enthusiasm. “I’m already on Mark 3 with it. Once you guys get in some hours with the internship and prove the science fair wasn’t just a fluke, then I might let it out into the light. This is top secret, though.”

“You all right there, Ned? You look like you’re gonna faint.” Tony said.

“I’m fine, Mr. Stark. I mean, Tony. I just, um, really love Spider-Man, so this is amazing news.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Tony said.

Tony glanced over Peter’s shoulder to see Natasha approaching. He had the joy of watching Peter jump a foot in the air when she appeared right beside him and spoke. “Pepper told me to tell you to wrap the party up.”

“What, why? It’s just getting started,” Tony complained.

“It’s almost midnight and they’re teenagers,” Natasha explained. “You can’t have an all-night rager with high school kids.”

“Right,” Tony realized. He glanced at Peter after Natasha said that, but he was too busy looking at the floor to notice. “Well, get Happy to distribute the bags. He’ll love that.”

Natasha smirked and walked away.

“Duty calls,” Tony said. “I’ll see you sometime in the next couple months then.”

At least Peter looked disappointed. Ned still looked pale.

“Okay,” Peter said. “Are you, uhm, are you giving a speech or anything at our graduation?”

“Unfortunately not,” Tony replied. “I’m booked at a few other places.”

“Makes sense,” Peter commented.

Ned’s eyes kept looking past Tony, presumably at the goodie bags. Peter was just focused on him.

“Go ahead, Ned,” Tony instructed.

Ned took off to claim his gift.

“It was a great party,” Peter said once they were alone again.

“Not bad,” Tony agreed.

Peter went to run his hand through his hair but probably remembered it was gelled, so he dropped it.

“It was nice to see you again,” Tony said after a moment. He couldn’t not say it. It would be a disservice to keep that from Peter.

“Y-you, too,” Peter stammered.

Tony smiled. _Ugh, it would be so easy. He’s right here. All I have to do is ask._

“Well,” Peter said. “I guess I’ll see you in July.”

“I guess you will,” Tony sighed. He just couldn’t take that extra step. Even after coming so far to get Peter back, he wanted to wait until the time was right.

Peter nodded and made to walk away, but then he turned back around to say something more.

“I promise we won’t tell anyone about your project, Tony. You can trust us."

“I know, kid.” Even if he hadn't known Peter, the earnest puppy dog eyes were impossible not to trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! I hope you liked it.
> 
> Raven is a shoutout to the character from The 100 who is super smart, and Walter is either Walter White from Breaking Bad or Walter Bishop from Fringe. (but young and in high school obviously lmao) Genius characters are the best.
> 
> xx


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More time passes for Tony while he tries to play it cool and not scare Peter off. Finally July arrives, and the interns start working at Stark Industries, and he has a reason to be in Peter's vicinity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait in between updates. I was working on a different story that took a lot out of me, but I'm back to this now! I appreciate anyone who's still subscribed and interested to see where the story goes. It means a lot to me. And if you're just checking out this story for the first time, thank you and welcome! Hope you like it.
> 
> xx

It had been a few months since he’d been thrust into the alternate reality, or replacement reality as he liked to call it, and things were stable, but Tony still didn’t trust it. He had to keep reminding himself that he was okay and that everything was cool. He was on his way to having Peter back, the world was safe, and he’d succeeded, but that being said, it wasn’t his personality to accept that at face value. In his experience, the other shoe always dropped, and he was just waiting for something to happen.

Despite having a much healthier body to his name and less grey in his hair, his nightmares were back after vanishing only briefly. When Peter had started sleeping in the bed with Tony whether at the compound or in a random hotel or one of his other penthouses around the world, the nightmares that had plagued him for years subsided. Peter was like a balm for everything bad in his life, and he knew that he was soothing for the boy in return. Peter had said he always slept better at Tony’s side. It was part of the reason Tony had allowed himself to give in to his feelings, as well, despite how inappropriate the relationship was. If they were good for each other, then surely none of the details mattered? He and Peter didn’t have to pretend they were okay when they were together, both orphans and victims of abundant deaths and tragedies, both heroes trying their best. Two guys who loved science and watching ridiculous movies. Tony had friends, and he’d had lovers, but none compared to the base understanding he and Peter shared.

Even the tremor in his arm hadn’t taken a very long respite. PTSD didn’t get erased just because he wanted it gone, unfortunately. Tony hated that he was supposed to be happy, revelling in his success, and that he couldn’t because the only thing he really cared about was getting Peter back. And sure, Peter was around, but he and Tony weren’t _there_ yet.

But maybe he needed to lower his expectations. Peter had shown interest, but it was no guarantee, and even if they started dating, Tony couldn’t imagine how he could tell the truth about himself and what had happened. He wasn’t even sure what happened. Why he hadn’t just blipped out of existence like the rest of his timeline’s people. Unless everyone in this version of reality remembered the other version and just weren’t saying anything.

Tony had a lot of time on his hands to overthink and dwell and worry. Not just about Peter but everything. Like he’d told Peter when the welcome party had come to an end, he had other commencement speeches to give in June, and other priorities that needed to be dealt with, but nowhere near the busy schedule he was used to having. Not to mention that any free time he’d once had was usually spent with Peter, and since that was off the table for the time-being, AI’s and super-suits were his only company—along with a fair deal of online shopping.

Tony stuck to his guns about not attending Peter’s graduation, but admittedly, he got a little cheeky and sent the graduating seniors Stark watches—after completely overhauling their manufacturing process since it was a bit of an embarrassment. If the Tony Stark that actually belonged to this reality ever came to the forefront of his consciousness, he was going to have a strong word with him about standards.

No matter how slowly, though, time always passed, and eventually the calendar went from May, to June, and then finally the first of July when the interns would start. Tony didn’t think anyone in the history of the universe had anticipated that day more than he had, even the Canadians.

Of course, since that was always the way things worked out, Tony ended up being busy that day. For over a month, he hadn’t had anything to do except wait until it would be appropriate to see Peter again, and his plan was foiled by a conference call at ass o’clock in the morning because of time zone differences, followed by a board meeting that he actually had to be at.

The day after that was an unexpected flight test with the military—which was actually welcome since Rhodey was there to keep him company. It was a treat to see his best friend without the leg braces. One of the most satisfying outcomes of the time travel besides everyone being not dead…

Tony didn’t know which department of SI Peter would actually be working in, but luckily, J.A.R.V.I.S. was on call for his every need, so it was nothing to find out. If it had been his decision, he would have plunked Peter in Research and Development, but he was so smart, he would’ve been a good fit anywhere.

Turned out he was correct, but as much as Tony wanted to take a trip down to the labs to see how Peter was liking the gig so far, he hesitated. He knew enough about himself to sense the desperate air he had surrounding him. It was difficult to concentrate on or care about anything when he knew that Peter was in the same building as him and so accessible.

Tony was insistent on not making any wrong move that could make him seem like the creepy rich boss who was always hanging around for no reason. Also not making any move that would tip Bruce off, although that ship had sailed with both him and Pepper since they’d immediately zeroed in on Peter’s importance before he’d barely uttered a word about him. If Tony didn’t appreciate intelligence and perceptiveness, it would’ve pissed him off. At least he’d been able to explain it away as a professional curiosity. Either way, what good excuse could he muster up to go down to the labs when he’d barely ever made appearances down there before?

The devil on his shoulder chimed in against the angel—was it actually creepy to try and hang around Peter? Was it a stretch to declare that Peter wanted this and enjoyed the attention? Or was that what every pushy dickhead told themselves when they were after their objects of affection? Tony would’ve loved to discuss it with F.R.I.D.A.Y. She would’ve set him straight.

Tony hemmed and hawed about it until 4:57, and figured that he might as well go for broke; he’d orchestrated the expo, the internship program, and bought his way into Peter’s academic sphere, so why stop there? What was the big deal about going a few floors down to see how the kid was doing? That was a nice, respectable thing to do. Not creepy or overbearing. He could manage it. Plus it was like a reward for not stalking Spider-Man through surveillance like he’d done in another life. There was no Baby Monitor Protocol, or showing up at May’s apartment to ambush Peter, no sweet-talking him into a trip to Germany. This was better. The new and improved Tony. The only sweet-talking Tony would be doing to get Peter to Europe was if they were taking a romantic getaway for two, but he was getting ahead of himself.

When the elevator brought Tony down to the appropriate floor, he was immediately bombarded by a wave of employees filing out of the labs since it was quitting time. Tony felt like it was a real testament to how much he loved Peter that he endured walking down the hall from the elevator to the lab like a salmon swimming against the stream—as if time travelling wasn’t enough of a testament.

He kept a purposely stony facial expression and didn’t offer anyone more than a nod, so they wouldn’t pester him and tie him up.

He successfully dodged a few stragglers—long-time employees who were apparent not only by their badges but their total lack of interest when it came to the boss being around. Tony had a love-hate relationship with being ignored. Right now since he was busy and trying to be incognito, he loved it.

Tony reached the door fitted with all the biometric security systems that money could buy, or in this case, that he could invent. When he was cleared, Tony entered the main lab and looked around the room and spotted Bruce first, and next to him— _such a teacher’s pet_ —was Peter. Of course he hadn’t left at 5 sharp with the rest of the company. Even if he had, Tony would’ve caught him in the hallway. No way he would’ve missed that face scuttling by him.

The boy looked like he was hanging on to every one of Bruce’s words, and Tony could’ve died. Peter was chatting with Bruce casually as if he had even one PhD and was a lot older than 17.

Tony felt glad for Bruce that he wasn’t shying away from the close contact either, and he seemed to be speaking just as eagerly as Peter. The passion he had for science took twenty years of age off his face.

Tony was sure the door opening had alerted Bruce to his presence. Both because there was a sound and a light to indicate someone had entered, and because Peter and Bruce had been facing the door and undoubtedly heard him enter. Peter especially must’ve known he was there with his heightened senses.

“Am I interrupting something?” Tony asked when nobody paid him attention. In this case, he wasn’t digging being ignored.

He enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing Peter look up and display the entire human spectrum of emotion across his face. First was fear and shock because he’d been frightened—Tony was glad that Peter’s spidey senses considered him safe enough to bypass the tingle even in this reality—second was annoyance at being interrupted, and third was realization followed by a telltale blush.

“Mr.Stark!” Peter said too loudly for the size of the room and for the amount of people occupying it.

“Tony, what are you doing here?” Bruce asked with his characteristically knitted eyebrows.

“Came to see how you were making out,” Tony explained. “You two weren’t actually making out were you? ‘Cause I can go.” _And there goes trying not to be creepy, nice one Tony. Spectacular._

“No. No way,” Peter protested. “No offense, Dr. Banner.”

“That’s inappropriate,” Bruce chided Tony while offering Peter a small nod.

“Take it up with management.” Tony waved.

Peter giggled.

“So,” Tony continued. “How’s your week going, Pete?”

“Oh, amazing,” Peter sighed wistfully, “Dr. Banner is great.”

“Bruce, please,” Bruce corrected.

Tony felt a twinge of jealousy at the exchange. He was used to Peter looking up to him, and he’d always felt special for being called Mr. Stark despite having told the boy repeatedly to call him Tony. It seemed that Peter just had a high respect for authority figures in general.

Tony nodded. “So, it’s just you guys left? I saw everybody else fleeing like a bomb went off.”

Bruce opened his mouth to reply, but Peter spoke first. “Yeah, just us. Dr—he was showing me something.”

“Peter had some more questions about our new prototype,” Bruce supplied. “I prefer working one on one, anyway,” he added.

“More things that haven’t changed,” Tony mused before he could stop himself.

He hadn’t intended to let that comment slip, but he was still acclimating to the new reality. Plus, he was excited to discover that Peter was still an eager learner and that his introverted friend was still put off by large crowds despite not having the Hulk to worry about.

Tony grimaced when he noticed Peter and Bruce looking at him oddly for the comment. “Anyway, just wanted to pop by since I had a minute.”

Bruce shrugged indifferently. “Sure, Tony.”

Peter’s enthusiastic response was amplified by the juxtaposition between him and calm Bruce. “Thank you, sir, um, Mr. Stark, for stopping by, and thank you for the opportunity. Really, I love it here.”

“Good. That’s a relief,” Tony teased. “If you’d hated it, I don’t think the company would’ve survived.”

Peter grinned. “I don’t think so either, to be honest. I mean…I didn’t want to say anything, but the conditions here aren’t what I’d thought they’d be.”

Bruce smirked. “It’s true, Tony. There are a couple things we could use.”

Tony frowned. Bruce and Peter might’ve been joking, but after what he’d seen of the pathetic capabilities of his Iron Man armor, and how primitive J.A.R.V.I.S. was before the upgrades, he didn’t doubt that his company needed some revamping. Especially if Pepper had said they were worth around twenty billion dollars. He would have to put the money back into the company and make sure everything was the best it could be.

“I didn’t mean—I was just joking,” Peter stammered. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Tony met his eyes, recovering from his glare and turning his expression into a smile. Shit. The last thing he wanted was for Peter to think he couldn’t take a joke.

“No,” Tony said. “You didn’t. You’re right. I won’t settle for less than perfect, so make a list, Brucey. Ask around and find out what improvements can be made.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Bruce challenged.

“If I do it, everyone will lie and say things are fine. Hell, even if Pepper gets an official team down here to evaluate everything and conduct a survey…you know people are most honest when they’re talking shit at the water cooler.”

Peter laughed.

“I can trust you two to give it to me straight, though,” Tony added. “The most notorious ball busters I know.”

“Well, we’ve only met a few times,” Peter reminded him. “I must make a strong impression.”

_Fuck. You don’t know him well enough to call him notorious. Idiot._

“Right.” After he recovered from yet another misplaced comment, he had the thrill of realizing that Peter was trying to flirt with him—and totally succeeding. Peter was blushing and looking at him hopefully, willing it to be true that he made an impression on Tony.

_You have no idea, kid._

“Anyway,” Bruce interjected. “I’ll see what I can find out. This is the research department after all…”

Tony and Peter both smiled at the joke.

“And Peter, it is after 5, so you can go,” Bruce added, glancing down at his watch.

“Oh. Really? I feel like I just got here.”

“Suck up,” Tony teased.

Peter blushed again.

“See, you are a ball buster. Keeping the intern here past 5 his first week,” Tony chided Bruce. “I’m ashamed.”

Bruce rolled his eyes.

“To be fair, I chose to stay,” Peter retorted.

“Whose side are you on?” Tony winked.

Peter ducked his head.

Tony sighed when Bruce caught his eye and inclined his head. Neither of them said anything for a beat, but then Bruce made some excuse and left the room.

“See you tomorrow, Peter,” Bruce tossed over his shoulder. “Tony.”

“Bye,” Peter and Tony replied simultaneously.

Tony was at a loss for words when he and Peter were left on their own. He was about to offer to walk Peter down to the lobby, or rather, ride down in the elevator with him, but he thought that might’ve been too soon, and Peter seemed content to fill the silence. Something Tony had always appreciated about the boy.

“Thanks for the graduation gift, by the way.”

“Everyone loved the watches, and it was really nice of you since you’ve already given us so much,” Peter tacked on without pausing. “I mean, it would’ve been even cooler if you could’ve come to our graduation too, but I totally get that you’re busy and have a lot of stuff going on. Like, you didn’t even have a big birthday party for yourself or anything, and usually it’s a huge deal. Kind of unlike you to cancel it. Wait a second. You’re not dying are you? You know, ‘cause usually when people have been diagnosed with some like terminal disease, they start acting unusual…giving stuff away, talking about death, cancelling events, and I read that—"

“Do I look like I’m dying to you?” Tony raised his eyebrows.

Tony grinned when he saw Peter’s brain catch up with his mouth. “Uhm, no,” Peter squeaked. “I—”

“Are you dying?” Tony asked. “You’re not dying are you? ‘Cause that would be…um, that would be, not ideal.”

Tony’s chest tightened when his mind couldn’t differentiate between a joke and a memory. “Not ideal” had been an understatement if he’d ever heard one. He knew exactly what it felt like to lose Peter, and he didn’t like talking about it at all, even if he was talking about it with Peter himself. He had to work to shake it off, unclenching his fists and steadying his breath to prevent himself from having a full blown anxiety attack.

“No, I’m not dying,” Peter said. “At least I don’t think so.” He frowned while he considered it.

Tony nodded tightly. “Well, that’s good news. You know, insurance payouts are kind of a hassle, and plus, I was really hoping to secure the patent for the Brita, and all.” He had no choice but to make a joke that he didn’t really even find funny. _Get a grip, man._

Tony’s mood improved when he watched Peter cringe at the mention of the water filter’s other name.

Peter laughed. “Meanie.”

“I suppose I am.”

“No, not really, Mr. Stark. Actually,” Peter paused, “you’re really different to what I thought you’d be like.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Peter insisted.

“Different how?”

“I don’t know.” Peter frowned. “Just like, from the interviews and stuff, you always seemed like, intimidating, or whatever, but you’re not. You’re nice. Cool.”

“Wow, a ringing endorsement. Would I sound like Skeletor if I told you that I’m not nice?”

“Who?”

“Never mind, it’s a cartoon. Doesn’t matter.”

“Oh,” Peter said easily. “Um, anyway, so I guess I better go.”

“Sure,” Tony agreed even though that was the last thing he wanted.

“Okay.” Peter shifted his weight.

Tony snapped his fingers a few times just so he could have something to do with his hands. “So you know, I didn’t feel like having a birthday party this year.”

He had no idea why he blurted that out. Probably because he wanted to chat with Peter a few moments longer. He was curious to know what the boy would have to say about that, and how he would react to a personal admission. Peter had already admitted that he’d expected Tony to be a dick—not in so many words. Tony sort of wanted to live up to his reputation, but he was glad that he didn’t. He wanted Peter to like him, not just be attracted to him. He wanted to bond more and get the ball rolling.

Even before they’d been together, Tony had always known Peter was special. Some intuitive feeling. Being around the kid made him feel like he had extra senses of his own, like he could just tell that he was around someone important. He wanted to take that feeling and run, and he hated having to play coy with Peter when he was in reaching distance. Having to hold back didn’t seem fair because, in his eyes, he and Peter had so much history, and picking back up where they left off would’ve been so easy because Tony still felt everything he felt for Peter, but now it was one-sided. Not because Peter didn’t like him, and not that he couldn’t, but the feelings were underdeveloped. To this Peter, Tony was still just Iron Man and Mr. Stark, the lofty, untouchable billionaire. The familiarity was gone, and even if Tony could get it back by spending more time with Peter, he still had to come to terms with the lost memories and the forgotten reality. Even if he and Peter united and reformed the relationship, Tony would always be on a different page because he was starting in the middle of the book, and Peter had only just gotten to page one.

Tony really had to get his dissociating in check because Peter was staring at him with a less enthusiastic expression. He wondered how long he’d been standing there silently. Tony assessed the situation and realized that Peter must’ve asked him why he didn’t feel like having the party.

“Wasn’t in the mood for one,” Tony explained. “You get to be my age, and it seems a little ridiculous to parade around in a tux and a party hat.”

“I guess, but you have obligations don’t you? Networking and schmoozing to do, right?” Peter asked. “You wouldn’t have cancelled the party just because you didn’t feel like it. I bet there’s lots of things you don’t feel like doing that you still do.”

Tony had no clue what to say to that.

“Perceptive,” Tony complimented.

Peter shrugged. “You don’t have to say, or anything. I don’t know. Sounds lame, but it’s kind of worrying. Like, Tony Stark doesn’t want to have a party…that’s pretty serious business.”

Tony worried his lips. “I guess I’m turning over a new leaf.”

He didn’t dare mention that the real reason he hadn’t “felt like” having a party was because his 48th birthday would’ve been the first time he’d be celebrating with Peter as his partner, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of going through the motions without Peter at his side in the new reality.

_“You’re turning 48,” Peter had said. “What do you want?”_

_“World peace,” Tony had joked._

_“Very funny.”_

_“My birthday isn’t until May, that’s a few months out, Pete. Relax about it.”_

_“Never.”_

_Peter had continued, “I mean, I don’t want to presume… You could totally get tired of me by then and dump me, but I’d still get you something. Maybe not like super expensive or fancy, but definitely something from the heart. I mean, obviously, I hope we’re still together then, but you never know. I don’t know. I think even if you decide to, you know, not, we can still be friends at least.”_

The words had been painful to listen to when Peter had first uttered them because how ridiculous was it that he actually thought Tony wouldn’t want him for the years to come, but now that his prophecy had unintentionally come true, it made Tony’s chest clench and ache to remember the conversation.

“You do that a lot.”

Tony returned to the present moment.

“Zone out,” Peter clarified.

“Yeah,” Tony said lamely. “I’m working on it. It’s a thing.”

“You must be stressed. Do you have anxiety?”

Tony scoffed. “I—”

“Do I stress you out?” Peter asked. “Oh my God, I’m boring you, keeping you here when you totally want to go, and you’re just being nice. No wonder you’re zoning out. I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Pete, relax. Seriously. We’re cool.”

Peter shook his head. “I gotta go.”

“Wait, do—” Tony tried. _Don’t go._

“Bye!” Peter yelped and scampered away.

“Ookayy,” Tony said. “Have a good night, then.”

“What the hell was that?” Tony muttered under his breath. If he was in a romantic comedy he might’ve sniffed his armpit just to make sure he’d remembered deodorant, but since his life was a regular old drama, he refrained.

On his way back up to the penthouse, it occurred to Tony that Peter probably needed to make a quick getaway to attend to some Spider-Man business, that maybe he shouldn’t take it personally, but it was hard not to. Everything he’d done to get close to Peter, and to get him back, and he was running away from him. Tony was starting to think that the time travel was the easy part of this whole situation. Especially when he remembered that it had taken Peter nearly four years of getting to know him before he’d admitted his feelings the first time. Tony hoped it wouldn’t take that long this time. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out before just propositioning Peter point blank. _Actually, that’s not a bad idea. When the time's right, you should be the one to ask him out. Make it easy on the poor kid._

Tony felt better having a plan in place. He was still going to play it cool and make sure that Peter was actually interested in him before doing anything drastic, but he was going to up the ante just a tad. Be more forward and give Peter the chance to respond in turn. He figured that ought to cut down four years of beating around the bush to a couple months at most. Peter was shy, rambly, and could be flighty at times. Tony was used to that, and the more he thought about it, the more the strange exit comforted him instead of worried him.

In the meantime, he had (working name) E.D.I.T.H. to occupy his time, and a couple of super soldiers he wanted to bump into.


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony takes a trip to Brooklyn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for taking so long on this. I could not get this chapter where I wanted it. (I rewrote it 4 times.) Thank you for your patience!! Next chapter will have a Peter and Tony scene. I just couldn't fit it into this chapter's length quota.

What Tony should have done was avoid Brooklyn and steer clear of any situation that would bring him face to face with his old foes, but because he was who he was and liked making things difficult for himself, he followed through with the trip.

Purposely trying to run into Rogers and Barnes seemed like unnecessary torture, but Tony felt compelled to seek closure and see for himself if he could truly put the negative parts of his past behind him. Move on, or at least try to.

If it all went to shit, at least he could find out where he stood and be slightly more acquainted with his new reality—being at each other’s throats would be a strange yet familiar comfort where he and Steve were concerned.

He had Happy take him up on a Saturday since some light recon told him that’s when the dynamic duo liked to do their grocery shopping. Tony thought it would be better if he wasn’t alone—Happy bearing witness to his endeavour was a little extra incentive not to act up and start a fight. In other words, it would be inconvenient to come up with an explanation for why he instigated a fight with two respected war heroes that were strangers to him as far as this version of 2018 was concerned.

Tony regretted involving Happy when the man kept asking him what they were doing in the middle of a bustling farmer’s market so early on a Saturday when he could’ve been sleeping in. Explaining the truth to Happy wouldn’t fly, and Tony wanted the chance to scope out Cap and his attack dog discreetly, so Tony took a calculated risk and decided to embellish the truth. If he simply told Happy that he wanted some organic vegetables or that he wanted to spend time with a friend, it would’ve invited more questions—like why Tony Stark was going grocery shopping for himself when he hadn’t ever before.

He didn’t blame Happy for being curious since he was behaving completely out of character for the Tony he was supposed to be, and really, he was wondering the exact same thing. What were they doing there? What was he expecting to get? Closure? Some sort of proof that he’d been wronged? Some epiphany that would make him realize Steve had been right about the Accords, or that would give him a change of heart about attacking Bucky in the heat of the moment? He knew on some level that the whole situation was fucked up and there was no right answer, but sometimes hurt trumped logic, and he had been hurt. Betrayed.

The last encounter he’d had with Steve had been the first once since Siberia. Carol had landed him and Nebula at the compound, and Steve had come running, but after that, he’d retreated to his lab to start planning Peter’s rescue. There hadn’t been much time for conversations or apologies, and he didn’t recall Steve stepping up and extending any olive branch. So that was that. Apparently Steve thought that his bullshit letter had been enough.

As bitter as he was about it all, he had some room left in him for nostalgia. Having the shit beat out of him had sucked, but it had all brought him to Peter. He remembered making the trip from Siberia back to Germany to meet up with Peter and Happy at the hotel, the subsequent flight home, the car ride. He’d barely known Peter then, but the kid had made him laugh and kept his mind off the destroyed team.

Peter had no idea that when he asked Tony if he was an Avenger and was told no it was because there was only a shell of a team left to belong to, and Peter was better than the Avengers. They didn’t deserve him.

They’d ended the evening with a hug. Tony had always been amused by how he’d brushed it off as grabbing the door, but it didn’t seem funny anymore. Changing his mind and knighting Peter an Avenger on the spaceship didn’t seem funny anymore, either. At least it had made him happy before he died...

_Goddamn, I swear. Can you stop thinking about him for one fucking minute and focus?_

Happy was waiting for an actual answer as to why they were there, and Tony had yet to respond.

“It’s a security issue,” Tony whispered. “There’s a couple guys I want to keep an eye on.”

“Seriously?” Happy’s chest puffed out a few inches. “What do we got here, boss? Terrorists, hackers? What’s the plan?”

Tony made a show of looking around the street to make sure they weren’t heard.

“Apparently this market is a front.”

“A front for what?” Happy asked. “Drugs? Trafficking?”

Tony frowned. Too bad obliterating Thanos hadn’t erased shitty humans and their shady behaviour too. “Hard to say, but I’m doing some scouting for S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Wow, okay,” Happy breathed. “Wait, won’t it look sketchy if you’re here? Like you’re involved?”

“Exactly. Someone as high profile as me seen hanging around here will send all the rats running. They’ll either be scared that Iron Man is on their tail, or that my being here will draw too much attention. They’ll have no choice but to close up shop.”

“Smart.” Happy nodded. “Okay, what should I do?”

“Just be cool. We’re strictly observing. Make note of anything suspicious. Any detail could be important.”

“Got it.”

Tony had a hard time not laughing at Happy’s gullibility and the absurdity of it all—telling his friend they were searching for criminals was accepted, but just wanting to hang out for the hell of it wasn’t believable. He and Happy had been closer in the original reality, and he missed that. Tony figured that a stunted friendship was the price he had to pay for having a luxurious life and being a hero, although he was reluctant to call himself that.

They walked around for nearly an hour before Tony got what he went there for. His doubts and his guilt for lying to Happy dissipated when he noticed Bucky and Steve walking side by side on the opposite sidewalk. It was worth it.

Tony still felt like laughing when he saw how small Steve was. Not that he had anything against petites, but it was vindicating to see the self-righteous Ken Doll not looking like he just came off the runway. He had thought Bucky was large before but seeing him towering over Steve made him look like an absolute beast.

Tony squinted at them and tried to make sense of his thoughts. He kind of wanted to fight them, but he also wanted to go home and forget about the whole thing. After all, these two hadn’t done a single thing to him, and even if he was in front of the version of Steve and Bucky who had fucked him over. Who even cared anymore? Losing Peter hurt worse than any physical beating he’d received. Ever.

“Let’s move,” Tony suggested. “We don’t want to stay in one place for too long.”

Happy followed him obediently while they crossed the road and got close enough to the pair to hear bits and pieces of their conversation.

—you know I love you, Stevie, but it’s not that hard to—

Tony strained to hear what was so hard for Steve to do. Wasn’t he perfect at everything?

—come on, Buck, it’s—

Tony nearly gagged from hearing the nick names, but then they started holding hands. The gesture filled him with immeasurable rage. How come they got to be happy? Was he really such an undeserving piece of shit that the universe needed to punish him in every reality? Always alone and on the outs no matter what revolutionary gadgets he invented, how much money he had, or how many people he saved.

Despite wanting to call his little mission off and retreat to his tower a la Rapunzel, Tony stuck with it. At the very least, he could speak to Steve and Bucky. It was a long shot, but maybe it was possible that they remembered something from the original reality. Tony doubted it, but there was something to say about the longevity of the super soldier serum. Maybe it preserved memories or made them more in tune with the universe. Okay, even Tony had to admit that sounded pretty dumb, and if he was going to be dealing with any enhanced individuals, it should’ve been Peter.

_What the fuck do I even say to them? ‘Hey, I had a dream you killed my parents and then beat the shit out of me. Wanna get some coffee?’_

Tony slowed his pace and sighed. “You know what, Hap. Maybe we should do this another day. I haven’t seen anything worth writing home about. Have you?”

“Let’s give it five more minutes.”

Tony frowned. Typical. Any other time, Happy would’ve been chomping at the bit to get out of doing something important, but now that Tony wanted to go home, the man was digging in his heels.

They’d slowed down, but it hadn’t done anything to increase the distance between them and the pair of soldiers they were tailing since the men had stopped to peer into some random shop window.

“I’m not feeling too hot. Why don’t we call it a day—” Tony cut off when he accidentally made eye contact with Barnes. He averted his eyes, but it wasn’t quick enough.

“Hey, Tony Stark!”

Tony flinched upon hearing his name leave the man’s lips and again when he saw his facial expression. Bucky was beaming? Nudging Steve whose expression looked politely amused. A couple of nearby pedestrians started gawking when they heard Tony’s name and saw his face, but they moved on quickly, probably intimidated to approach.

“Uh, hi?” Tony approached them, giving Happy a quick glance to see what the man was making of it all. Tony could tell that his friend was on high alert. As if Steve and Bucky were the criminals they were looking for. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Tony had no idea how to play it. Should he act like he didn’t know who they were? According to his memories and his research, he had nothing to do with these two, and they had nothing to do with S.H.I.E.L.D., having gone on leave after being saved from the ice together seven years prior. Tony supposed the only reason the pair were able to take a break and not have to pick the mantle back up was because HYDRA had been eradicated, and with no Thanos, no threats were large enough to require their assistance anymore.

If Tony knew anything about Fury, though, he was keeping close tabs on these guys. It was weird how so much was different, but so much was the same. Tony wondered why killing Thanos hadn’t stopped the Tesseract from coming into play at all during the second World War. He wondered where it currently was and whether he was going to be able to sleep at night if he was obsessing over the Infinity Stones and their whereabouts. If this reality had still had a run-in with the blue Rubix cube, then who was to say there wasn’t going to be more trouble? Who was to say that he didn’t have even bigger problems besides Peter to worry about? Like impending threats that would mean re-recruiting the makeshift Avengers.

Tony could hear his heart pounding all the way in his ears. _Great, the anxiety attacks are back._ He was vaguely aware that, once again, there were people in front of him waiting for a response, but he couldn’t make his mouth move. Peter had already noticed his zoning out, so everyone else must have too.

_Just fucking say something. Say hi. Say anything._

“Happy, this is—” Tony’s face contorted with the effort of trying to think of what to actually call these two. Captain Rogers? Steve? Sergeant Barnes? Soldier? Assholes 1 and 2? “Rogers and Barnes, my father worked with them back in the day.”

_God, I feel like Peter. Is this what it’s like in his brain?_

“Holy shit. Thought they looked familiar.”

Tony quirked a lip at that. It was rare that Happy was ever happy about anything. He hadn’t been aware he was towing along a fan.

“Good to meet you. Call me Steve.” Steve smoothed over the awkward moment like he was used to being approached and fawned over all the time. He held out his hand for Tony first, then Happy. “Sorry if I misunderstood, your name is Happy?”

“That’s right.” Happy stood up a little straighter.

“Don’t worry, buddy, that guy’s name is Bucky. I think you’re tied for weird names,” Tony joked.

Bucky raised his eyebrows and laughed. “Touché.”

Tony settled down a bit since Bucky’s aura exuded nothing but delight. He was surprised the guy didn’t gush about how he knew his name.

Bucky ran a hand through his hair, and Tony did a double take. “Where’s your—”

For once, he was able to stop himself from speaking. Otherwise he would’ve had to put both feet in his mouth. How was he supposed to brush off asking Bucky about his metal arm and its glaring absence?

“I mean, never mind.” Tony waved a hand as if it would erase what he’d just blurted from the record.

He was grateful when Bucky chose to ignore him, but he still had questions. Like why the serum had kept Steve small and yet Bucky seemed big. Then again, maybe Bucky was just his normal height and size, sans serum, but looked huge in comparison to Steve? It didn’t matter, but Tony wanted to know anyways.

“Anyway, did you guys need something?” Tony barrelled on.

Bucky actually looked sheepish. “Not really. We, uh—”

Steve rolled his eyes and had the most mischievous of expressions. “He’s a big fan, Mr. Stark. Huge science geek.”

Bucky didn’t say anything to Steve, but his eyes clearly read, _I’m going to kill you later._

Tony gave a manic laugh. Out of all the reasons he’d been called over, the last thing he’d been expecting was _that_. He should’ve had an autographed glamour shot ready to hand out. Give the brute some new material for his spank bank.

_Okay, why do you think things like that. Not an image I wanted in my head. And, hold up. Did Steve just call me Mr. Stark instead of something insulting?_

“Really? And you’re not, Steve?” He couldn’t not confront him. It was like his brain was hardwired to do it. Muscle memory: see Steve, antagonize him.

Steve inclined his head like he didn’t want to say. “Not exactly. It’s nothing personal. Just not a science guy.”

“He’s into the arts.” Bucky nudged Steve again.

Steve nudged him back and shook his head.

“It’s fine. I have enough fans,” Tony assured. He had never thought Bucky Barnes would be one of them, but he supposed crazier shit had happened.

Tony looked at Happy to see what he was making of the entire situation, but the man was stoic. If he hadn’t known Happy better, he would’ve thought he looked pissed, but as it was, he could tell the man was trying not to freak out and gush about meeting Captain America.

Tony wondered if he could get away with docking Happy’s pay for that.

“Anyway, I’ll leave you two to it…” Tony trailed off. He clenched and unclenched his fist like he had after going through the motions of shaking Steve’s hand.

“Oh sure,” Bucky said. “I just wanted to meet you, I guess. The only other superhero I know is Steve, and that kind of got old.”

“Jerk.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, well, it’s my pleasure. My dad spoke highly of you both. I’m surprised we haven’t bumped into each other before.”

Steve nodded seriously. “We told Fury if he ever really needed us, we’d suit up and get back in the fight, but until then—”

“We served our time,” Bucky added. “Did our part. So we try to keep our distance from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Obviously not too far since you’re still in Brooklyn,” Tony pointed out.

“That’s not why we stay here,” Steve replied.

“Right,” Tony said. “Sure.”

“Anyway, Mr. Stark. If it weren’t for you doing what you do, we’d probably still be in the field,” Steve admitted. “So, thank you.”

Tony couldn’t help but look bewildered and incredulous. Was this some kind of cosmic prank? Steve acknowledging that he wasn’t a useless and arrogant son of a bitch? Actually thanking him?

Bucky apparently agreed. “Definitely.”

With the way Steve and Bucky were looking at him and after the kind things they’d said, there was no way Tony could justify calling a suit and having a smackdown in the middle of the street.

_Who cares if it’s justified? Could be fun. Punch one of them in the face just to see what they’d do._

It was tempting, but his heart wasn’t in it. Even before Bucky had called him over he’d been prepared to let it go.

Tony didn’t know what to say, so he just thanked them in return. He wasn’t sure if he forgave them, or if there was anything to forgive at all—the situation was so strange and unprecedented. There was no rule book for confronting your enemies-that-used-to-be-friends-slash-teammates in another reality where they didn’t do the shit you were mad at them for.

“See you guys around.” Tony offered in parting. “Take…care. I guess.”

“Will do.”

Tony tried to pretend he didn’t hear Bucky chastising Steve for embarrassing him, but he heard it and just had to crack a smile. What the fuck was this life?

He wasn’t quite ready to invite them back to the tower for tea, but he had a new perspective. Maybe what had made Steve such a dick before was losing Bucky and getting him back only to lose him again and again, no matter how hard he fought. Tony didn’t have to guess whether he might have the same attitude problem if he’d lost Peter; he knew it for a fact. He sort of understood how Steve could betray him for Bucky and turn his back on everyone to save one man. He’d done it when he went off on his own and invented the time-travelling device to get Peter back. Love was a strong motivator.

“Now, I’ve seen it all, boss,” Happy said with a shake of his head.

“What’s that?”

“Captain America and Sergeant Barnes are fans.”

“I have lots of fans,” Tony repeated his joke from earlier.

“Yeah, but it’s one thing for a civilian to like you, but they’re famous war heroes, and they like you. That means a little bit more.”

Tony gritted his teeth. “What can I say? They have good taste.”

“You bet your ass they do.”

“Thanks, Hap. Might have to give you a raise. Keep sucking up, we’ll see what happens.”

“How about you just take me to lunch. All this walking around has me starving.”

“You got it, buddy.”

“Thought you weren’t feeling good? You said that before we stopped.”

_Damn. Happy’s tricky when he wants to be. I almost forgot._

“No, I’m good. Let’s eat.”

“I think I saw a pizza place a couple bodegas back,” Happy suggested.

“We were supposed to be looking for suspects, not restaurants,” Tony said, trying to cling onto his thin explanation for why they were there.

“We both know there’s nothing going on here, Tony.”

Tony’s smile dropped right off his face.

“I know you just wanted to spend time with me and didn’t know how to ask,” Happy explained smugly.

Tony debated lying, but what was the point?

“What gave it away?”

“I’ve been by your side for almost thirty years, Tony. It’s my job to know you, and you’ve been acting weird. I didn’t wanna say anything, but I think it’s time I did.”

If Happy noticed something was off, then surely Pepper did, and there was an impending lecture headed his way. Bruce and Rhodey had been giving him some looks, too. Even J.A.R.V.I.S. had a little bit of a tone going on.

Tony nodded and promised himself that he’d work on his acting game.

“Anyway.” Happy shrugged. “Are you good? Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“I’m not dying, if that’s what you mean. Just, uh, feeling weird lately like you said.”

Happy inclined his head.

“Lonely, I guess.” Tony cringed at himself.

Happy’s expression softened. “Oh, buddy.”

“I’m closing in on 50, Happy. I need to settle down. You know, I’m starting to see what’s really important.”

“I’m glad you wanted to hang out with me,” Happy said, “really, but I gotta tell you. I’m not gay.”

“Wow. I’m all torn up.” Tony rolled his eyes. “How will I go on?”

Happy grinned, obviously satisfied with his joke and with seeing Tony smile. “You’ll find someone. I guarantee it. Anyone would have to be crazy not to want you.”

Tony wanted to tell him he’d already found someone, but it wasn’t a story he could tell unless he wanted to be laughed at or committed to an insane asylum. If things went his way, though, Happy would know about Peter soon enough—without any of the tragic-backstory details. And until then, at least he had a good friend at his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going through a bit of a creative rough patch and would love if I could get some ideas of cute Peter Tony scenes you lovely readers want to see. It would be super fun to get some suggestions I can include in the upcoming chapters. I have some ideas I'm set on and know how I want to end the story, but a lot of the rest of the middle can be based on your ideas!! :) Please let me know!!
> 
> EDIT: Jan 19 2021, okay I've got it under control now! Thank you for your tips xoxo


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony visits Peter again, but it's difficult trying to pretend like he doesn't already know him...especially when his anxiety and self-doubt are getting worse by the day.
> 
> Tony never thought he'd see the day where he'd be the tongue-tied one out of him and Peter.

Tony was grateful that the trip to Brooklyn had gone well but witnessing Steve and Bucky’s happy ending firsthand was a painful reminder that he needed to concentrate his attention on his main goal. Getting Peter back. Everything else was inconsequential, nothing but a distraction.

Based on what Tony had seen of Peter so far, he was almost exactly the same as before. Sassy, as in he wasn’t afraid to call Tony out when necessary, but also sweet and incredibly intelligent. He was also slightly more anxious and insecure than what Tony was used to, what with his constant blushing and running away in the middle of their last conversation, but that barely counted as an obstacle. The ultimate obstacle had been death, and Tony had beaten that. It just changed how he was going to approach the matter.

Tony wanted to get back to where he and Peter had been _before_ , and he knew that would take time, so instead of spooking the kid and asking him straight out on a date, he would have to find ways for them to spend time together more casually. He would have to work up to the level of intimacy and closeness they once had and coax Peter into seeing him on a more personal and relatable level. Close the gap between boss and intern, celebrity and fan.

Maybe it wasn’t absolutely necessary to wait. After all, Tony had clocked the opportunity he had the night of the intern welcome party. Peter would have been willing, and he probably still was despite Tony’s blunders and anxious behaviour—he really needed to work on that—but Tony wanted to be a gentleman; Peter was too important for him to cut corners and rush things.

Tony’s first order of business was to visit the lab more frequently, so he could chat with Peter. Maybe flirt a little. Ask Peter questions and learn all about him. Show him that he could be comfortable around Tony, that he could trust him.

The second order of business was building upon that budding bond and telling Peter that the suits were ready which would present him with the opportunity to tell the truth about Spider-Man. Working on the suits together would be a great way to bond further and establish a real rapport. Tony would then become a stable presence in Peter’s life just like he had been before, and the rest would be history.

If none of that worked, Tony was fully prepared to up the ante and toss out the entire playbook. He could easily grab an Iron Man suit and fly to Spider-Man’s stomping grounds, catch him in the act on patrol. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, that Peter would be more forthcoming, but as innocent as the boy was, he could be a cheeky little bastard when he wanted to be. Tony remembered it well—jamming a stick into Peter’s ceiling storage space where he stashed the suit. Even when it had come tumbling down and even when Tony had confronted him with video evidence of Spider-Man’s achievements, Peter denied it.

Tony smiled at the memory. It simultaneously felt like only yesterday and a lifetime ago since it happened. It was kind of funny how he’d had no idea how important and life-changing that trip to Queens would turn out to be. The most inconsequential seeming things had a way of sneaking up on him in a very consequential way.

The itch that often made itself apparent to Tony whenever he fixated on Peter for too long—which was always—returned. Tony was dying to scratch it. All he had to do was say the word, and J.A.R.V.I.S. would fix him up with all the surveillance and intel on Peter Benjamin Parker that he could ever ask for. Maybe he didn’t need to look at all of it, but maybe he could have just a taste—like the drive-bys of Peter’s neighbourhood afforded him. A clip of Spider-Man swinging from the Queensboro bridge, a newspaper article recounting the details of Peter’s parents’ accident. Hell, maybe they were still alive, and Aunt May had been the one to attend the mini expo out of pure coincidence. Tony didn’t want to assume anything about his new reality, but at the same time, he’d guessed at where Peter lived and attended school, and he had been correct. So, really, what could be that drastically different?

A nagging feeling in his gut, told Tony that the other shoe always dropped. There had to be something. Maybe Peter had a sibling. Maybe it was something minor like Peter hating gummy worms. Shouldn’t he know if Peter had any skeletons in his closet? Not only that, but research could only serve to help him win Peter over. He hadn’t wanted to cheat or invade Peter’s privacy, but the clock was ticking; Peter was only interning for the summer, and it was already almost August. Tony knew August was Peter’s birth month, but maybe it wasn’t. He should at least know that, so he could get him a gift.

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Tony began. What could it hurt to check out Peter’s birthdate? It was probably on his paperwork for the internship…

“Yes, sir?”

Tony picked at the skin around his thumbnail while he wrestled with the decision. _Should I?_ He had looked up everybody else in his life. He’d researched music, and movies, and historical events, anything he could think of that would allow him to blend in seamlessly. Why shouldn’t he maximize his chances of getting Peter back by learning any information he could to use to his advantage. _Wow, your favourite colour is orange, not red? Who would’ve thought? Your parents didn’t die? I guess we don’t have that in common…_

Tony rolled his eyes. _Idiot._ It wasn’t like anything he could learn would be helpful, and it wasn’t like keeping himself from the information was helpful, either. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t manufacture a bond based on quickfacts of Peter’s existence; time was the only thing that could bring them closer together. Watching videos of Spider-Man swinging around wasn’t going to heal the hole in his heart that Peter’s death had left behind. The hole that still remained because Peter was still absent from his life in any meaningful way. _For now._

“Sir?” J.A.R.V.I.S. prompted. “Shall I open a new project file?”

“Not now.” Why look at Peter’s face through a holoscreen when he could see it in person?

* * *

Tony found Bruce in his office at the very back of the lab, flipping through paperwork at a crowded desk. Instead of leaving his arrival for the last minute, Tony had decided to get there before the day shift started, so he could already be talking to Bruce when Peter showed up. This way it wouldn’t look like he was specifically coming down to see Peter. Although, when he thought about it, who really cared what it looked like? His name was on the building. He could do what he liked.

Tony shoved some papers aside and took a seat on the desktop.

“Hey, Tony.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“Why the long face?” Tony added.

“I’m looking for…” Bruce trailed off while he opened and closed folders in a disorganized blur.

“For…”

“I’m supposed to be helping Helen with something, and I had some handouts to give to the kids, I can’t—” Bruce cut off as he tended to do.

Tony understood where he was going with the sentence anyway, so he didn’t press.

“Here they are!”

“Oh, thank God,” Tony joked. “I was worried.”

Bruce rolled his eyes but smiled. “What did you want, anyway?” 

“What’re you helping Helen with again?”

It was 50-50 whether Bruce took the bait and changed the subject or called him out for answering a question with a question.

Luck was on Tony’s side; Bruce went with the first option.

Tony found it all interesting enough, but the demonstration Bruce and Helen had planned was definitely an intern-level type affair and more than below his paygrade. Bruce’s too, but Bruce at least liked teaching and working with others, and Tony was more of a lone wolf in the lab—exceptions made for approximately three people and a handful of bots.

Tony started teasing Bruce as they made their way out of the office. “Anyway, hey, why don’t you just digitize your files? Get everyone a tablet. Then you could, you know, email the handouts? Share files. Save paper.”

“Wow, why didn’t I think of that?”

Tony inclined his head. “Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t like emailing,” Bruce said. “You never know when someone gets it, or if they look at it and ignore it, or if it goes straight to the junk folder. Plus you have to exchange contact information…the whole thing is too intimate. Then you got tons of people who know your email address and start sending you chain mail or things you don’t care about it…questions at all hours of the night. Just…no. I’d rather give them a paper and be done with it.”

“You seem to have put a lot of thought into this.”

“Maybe,” Bruce agreed distractedly.

“Scatterbrain.”

Bruce held up his hands. He knew what he was.

They stopped walking when they reached the table at the front of the main lab. It was backdropped by a couple whiteboards filled with diagrams related to the impending presentation.

Tony had a love-hate relationship with presentations. On one hand, there was his beloved expos which were a blast. On the other hand, there was his weapons presentations from back in the arms dealing days. In the middle of the spectrum were graduation and charity gala speeches. He’d been drunk for most of the presentations he’d ever given and subsequently drunker at all the award ceremonies in his honour. Maybe it was more hate than love, then. Better Bruce teaching the interns than him. Although, there was one intern who he wouldn’t mind teaching again.

“So you never answered my question.”

_Damn._

“What’s that?”

“Why you’re here.”

“Truth?”

Bruce’s eyes brightened as if Tony was about to lay down some hot gossip.

“I miss hanging out with you, talking shop, experimenting.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes, clearly skeptical of such an admission.

“I wasn’t kidding about wanting to make some improvements to the company, either,” Tony explained. “I came down to see if you’ve made any headway in figuring out where I should start.”

Tony could’ve kissed Bruce when the man grimaced and admitted to not having done anything about his task yet. More reason to come back yet again in a few days.

“Shame,” Tony lied.

“Yeah, but, Tony,” Bruce began. “You know something about the equation isn’t adding up.”

Tony hated how perceptive Bruce could be. He knew where this was going. It was Saturday with Happy all over again. Was he really that obvious?

“Wasn’t aware there was an equation, big guy.”

“You have hundreds of employees. An assistant too, last time I checked,” Bruce noted. “A highly underpaid CEO who could be asking one of her assistants to do this. Hell, you could’ve assembled an entire asset assessment and management team to do this.”

“Pepper is not underpaid. Believe me.”

Bruce huffed. “You don’t make house calls to the labs, Tony. You’re up to something.”

“You know who makes house calls? Doctors. Finally, someone acknowledges that I have doctorates. About time if you ask me.”

Bruce tossed him a withering expression.

Tony was stubborn and didn’t give in. “What, aren’t you going to remind me that you have three times as many as I do?”

“Besides, I already told you why I’m having you do it instead of an official committee or something. You work down here in the trenches, so you know what we need better than anybody, and the other employees will be honest about what’s lacking around here since you don’t work _for_ Stark Industries, technically. Which is another thing you love reminding me of, by the way. Right?”

“Yeah, I guess I see your point,” Bruce agreed. “It would be nice to get some new equipment.”

Tony smiled at Bruce’s wistful expression. A scientist with the promise of new lab equipment was like a kid in a candy store.

“Don’t get me wrong, Tony,” Bruce continued. “I’m not trying to say it’s unlike you to care so much about the company, that’s not what I mean, but—”

“You’ve never seen me more invested,” Tony supplied.

Bruce nodded, an apologetic expression on his face. He seemed to be genuinely curious and concerned, not accusatory.

Maybe Tony should have been offended since Bruce was basically implying that he was so detached from everybody and everything in his life that even acting like he cared a little bit was bizarre behaviour. But he wasn’t since it wasn’t technically him getting interrogated by everyone around him. This was about the old Tony. What kind of dick was this guy? Tony was kind of pissed at the other version of himself for being such a disappointment.

Tony imagined that he would’ve been that way too without so much tragedy to ground him and show him the importance of friends and family, and having something to live for. Actually, imagination had nothing to do with it. Yinsen had said it to him in that cave. He was a man with everything and nothing. He’d told him not to waste his life, and yet apparently this version of Tony hadn’t taken the advice even though he’d received it too.

It was kind of a good thing to find out, though; at first, Tony had felt guilty enough for highjacking this guy’s body and life, but if he had been doing such a piss poor job of being Tony Stark, then Tony was glad he was able to pop in and rectify things. He wanted to show Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, and Bruce that they weren’t just accessories or furniture in his life. He loved them. He would get Peter back and have his family. He would improve his AIs, his suits, and his company, and be a hero in and out of the Iron Man suit.

It was cathartic to himself to realize that all of the upgrades he’d been giving his own life weren’t just about trying to get Peter back. Of course, it all helped, and it had been because of Peter, but the changes were worthwhile anyway. Not mere distractions either. He knew in his heart it was the right thing to do to make the world a better place, and even after he had Peter back, he would continue implementing improvements. He wanted to earn his place, and—

Tony looked to the door reflexively when he heard it open. After a moment, he reluctantly turned his attention back to Bruce. Bruce’s eyes flickered to the door, and Tony would have had to be an idiot not to see the comprehension in his expression.

Peter was just entering, looking cute with both straps of his backpack affixed securely on his shoulders rather than haphazardly slung over one. He looked tired. Tony was dying to know what was keeping him up at night. Same nightmares as always?

Tony stood up straighter.

“Tony.” One word said it all.

“What?” Tony grimaced. Playing dumb never worked on Bruce.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “You’re still interested in the kid, I see.”

Tony licked his lips. “Yeah, he’s smart. Shows a lot of promise.”

“I agree,” Bruce mused. “He’s the best one of the bunch.”

“Yeah?” Tony inclined his head. “I mean, I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m glad to hear it. I can be biased about these things, you know. It wouldn’t do for me to be the only one who thinks he’s worth something.”

“No, you weren’t wrong about him, but you and I both know you’re not just after his brain.”

Tony shoved his hands in his pockets. “Oh?”

Bruce smirked. “He is pretty cute. I’ll give you that.”

Tony bristled. “Keep it in your pants, Banner.”

“God, you’re easy.” Bruce shook his head.

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Ha ha.”

“Even if I was interested, I don’t think you need to worry, buddy. He’s got it bad for you. I wouldn’t have a chance.”

“Put a pin in that,” Tony said. “I’d like to hear more.”

“Yeah, but, Tony, you know he’s only—” 

“Later,” Tony cut him off, gesturing vaguely. “After the demonstration.”

“You can stay,” Bruce sighed, “but I didn’t print enough handouts for you.”

“I’ll survive.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bruce said without even making eye contact with him. Too focused on his precious handouts.

It was perfect timing for Bruce to shut his face since Peter was in reaching distance. Tony didn’t let the opportunity pass him by and stepped right into Peter’s path.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter froze in his tracks, blushing and ducking his head.

Tony didn’t bother repressing his fond smile when the glasses Peter was wearing clattered to the floor with his abrupt motion. Obviously, they were a little too big for his face. He didn’t hesitate to step forward and snatch the glasses off the ground before Peter could reach them.

“Oopsies.” Tony was about to hold out the glasses for Peter to take, but then he got a better idea.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for these,” Tony said. “Thanks for finding them.”

He put Peter’s glasses on. They made his vision unbearably blurry. Undoubtedly, they were what Peter wore to filter out all of the extra data input. That high of a prescription for the purposes of reducing Peter’s vision probably still left him with better than 20/20.

Peter giggled despite his protests about it not being funny.

He tried again. “Hey, I need those. Please?”

“But they’re mine.”

“Um, okay. I guess you can have them.”

Tony frowned. Was he really going to give up that easily?

Peter made to walk past Tony, but he faked him out and tried to snatch his glasses back. Apparently, he wasn’t giving up. That was the Peter Tony knew and loved.

Tony danced out of Peter’s way.

Peter’s eyes were pleading when he asked for them back.

“Oh, all right. You drive a hard bargain. Here.” Tony held out the glasses for Peter to take.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark, um, Tony.” Peter cleaned the lenses on his shirt before sliding them back on his face.

“My pleasure, Pete. I’ll let you borrow them for the day, yeah?”

Peter grinned. “That’s really nice of you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not completely free of ulterior motives. After all, if you’re not wearing your glasses, how would you be able to see my impossibly handsome face?”

Peter’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

“I’m kidding.” Tony waved.

“Doesn’t make it not true, even if you were kidding.”

_Now we’re getting somewhere._

Tony smiled at Peter appreciatively. Despite his apparent shyness, he still knew how to flirt. Although, it was less flirting and more just being a sweetheart. Saying nice things came as easily to Peter as breathing.

“You’re sweet,” Tony said.

Peter wrung his hands. “Actually, I sort of wanted to—”

“Good morning,” Dr. Cho greeted, looking from Peter to Tony. “What are you doing here?”

_Having my entire romantic grand plan ruined because of your terrible timing, Helen. Thanks for nothing._

Peter had admitted he found Tony good-looking and given him the perfect opportunity to move things forward, and just like that, the moment was gone. What had Peter been about to say?

“Good morning, Dr. Cho,” Peter said.

“An array of things, Helen,” Tony answered. She wasn’t getting the ‘Dr. Cho’ treatment from him.

Helen rolled her eyes and unfortunately took his sarcasm as an invitation to keep speaking to him.

Peter scampered off to go put his things away, and Tony was left to discuss the upcoming demonstration with Helen. It hadn’t even happened yet, and he was already tired of hearing about it. He hadn’t actually been planning on staying for it despite his joke to Bruce, but now that he had a taste of being next to Peter again…what the hell? He didn’t have anything else better to do.

The rest of the interns filtered into the room over the next few minutes, and Tony was hyperaware of Peter standing too far away. Not only that, but he was next to a girl Tony remembered talking to at the party, Raven. Tony wondered if there was anything going on there, if Peter liked her or was just talking to her because Ned was in a different department, and he needed a backup friend. Maybe Tony could pull some strings and put Ned into the mix if that would make Peter more comfortable on the job.

Tony stuck to the outer layer of the intern cluster, so he wouldn’t be too distracting. The demonstration was semi-interesting to watch, but it wasn’t anything he didn’t already know like the back of his hand. Peter was much more fascinating to observe.

He stifled a laugh when Bruce handed out his papers like a middle school teacher. That was probably the most interesting part of the entire thing besides Peter. He felt Peter’s eyes on him, so he glanced over to the boy to confirm. Just as he’d suspected. They exchanged a smile, and Tony winked. Yeah, Peter was definitely more fascinating than a lecture on synchronous condensers.

“Mr. Stark?” Dr. Cho interrupted his and Peter’s exchange for the second time.

“Present.” Tony turned his head toward her.

Everyone laughed, and Tony felt like he was a kid in high school again.

“Did you have something to add to what I just said?” she pressed.

“No, you pretty much said it all.”

“I won’t hesitate to kick you out if you keep distracting the interns.” She seemed serious although she wore a playful expression.

Tony didn’t what to take any chances. “Yes, ma’am.” He grinned and turned his focus back to Peter who was blushing a deep red.

At one point, Bruce told the group that they should reference their handouts. Tony wasn’t concerned about not having one until he saw Peter’s head turn out of the corner of his eye. At first, he returned the eye contact, not recognizing that he was missing an opportunity.

Peter clued him in when he gestured with the page in his hands. Oh, he wanted to share. _Why didn’t I think of that?_

Thank goodness Peter was a little quicker on the upkeep.

There was nothing stopping him from using the situation to his advantage. Not even Bruce who wasn’t shy about voicing his suspicions, or Helen who seemed to have an affinity for cockblocking, or heartblocking as it were…

Peter hadn’t looked away either despite the blush on his cheeks having reached the tips of his ears and the back of his neck. Despite Tony standing there frozen like a complete idiot.

Peter left his place and walked closer to Tony when he still didn’t make any effort to move.

“You can share with me,” Peter offered in a whisper. “If you want.”

“What excellent problem-solving skills you have,” Tony mused. He glanced down at the paper he didn’t really care about, and then flicked his gaze back up to Peter’s face. Peter was still staring at him and abruptly looked away when he was caught. As if he only just now realized how obvious he was being.

Really, Peter had always been obvious about his affections; he wore all of his thoughts and feelings and moods right on his sleeve. Tony didn’t mind in the slightest. Not before, and certainly not now when more doubts pervaded his mind every passing day. Doubts that Peter might not feel the same way, or that he might be too different to win over. Doubts that he could get Peter back and lose him again in a different tragedy. Any number of things could go wrong and prevent them from reuniting in the way Tony had been dreaming of. Sure, Peter was alive, but he wasn’t _his_ yet, and Tony wanted to treat the situation as delicately as possible. Not rock the boat and fuck everything over. So, if Peter wanted to make eye contact with him and blush and trip all over himself because he was carrying a huge torch and couldn’t hide it? If he wanted to be obvious and make it all the easier for Tony to believe he was secure in this new reality, then he could go right ahead. Tony was thrilled to have some sort of encouraging sign.

Tony kept waiting for an opening to bring up their last conversation and how Peter had taken off on him with zero warning, but the interns were actually taking everything seriously and asking questions, participating in the discussion Helen and Bruce had started. It would have been inappropriate to start a private dialogue with Peter. He was dying to be inappropriate, though. If not interrupt the demonstration by professing his love to Peter, then at least by making a few wisecracks or asking a couple dumb questions to make him laugh again like he used to.

He didn’t have the heart to do it, though—he could read the room and knew playing the class clown in front of a bunch of nerds would make him look like an idiot. He’d already made a couple of jokes, and he didn’t want to push his luck. Not with Peter watching, especially.

Tony did them both a favour and kept his eyes trained on the paper. He didn’t want Helen to call him out and embarrass Peter again, no matter how pretty his blush was. He also didn’t want to give into the temptation of dragging Peter out of the lab and up to his penthouse.

The thought that Peter had been up there once before tugged at his mind. Why had he wasted that opportunity, again? He hadn’t wanted to be sleazy or move too fast, but it seemed he was going in the opposite direction now. Holding onto eye contact and a few collective minutes of conversation as if he wasn’t Tony Stark, worldly and experienced. He guessed it spoke to how special Peter was that he didn’t treat him like he would have treated a conquest.

How to bridge the gap between exchanging glances and telling Peter he was his soulmate and that he’d travelled space and time to get him back? That wasn’t exactly something he could bring up over a coffee date.

_Oh boy._

“Mr. Stark?” Peter whispered. “Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” Tony dragged his eyes away from the handout he was staring a hole into.

Peter’s concern was written all over his face.

Tony had to work to make his hand stop shaking. The paper was moving perceivably.

“Low blood sugar, I think. It’s nothing,” Tony explained.

“Are you sure?” Peter looked at him with such worried eyes that Tony could hardly bear it.

“I—” Tony frowned. What was he saying? What could he say? Of course he wasn’t fucking okay.

He opened his mouth to tell Peter that he was going to go, that he’d see him another time, but Bruce beat him to the punch and announced that they could leave for lunchtime. The demonstration came to a blissful end, and now that Tony had Peter’s full attention, he wasn’t sure he knew what to do with it.

Peter looked at him sheepishly while everyone else left the room.

“What are your lunch plans?” Tony asked, dying to change the subject from his crippling anxiety to something more lighthearted. He didn’t need to burden Peter.

“Oh, um, I’m going to meet my friend. You remember him, probably. It’s Ned.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “You better skedaddle then. Don’t wanna make you late.”

“We’re just meeting in the cafeteria downstairs,” Peter explained. “It’s nothing special.”

Peter blanched. “I mean, not that your cafeteria isn’t great, you know. I didn’t mean that. I just meant, you know. It’s not a big plan or like reservations.”

Tony smiled easily. “Sure.”

“Yeah.”

“By the way—” Tony started.

“I wanted to—” Peter spoke at the same time.

Peter ducked his head. “Sorry.”

“No, please. Go ahead,” Tony encouraged.

“I wanted to apologize for running off the other day,” Peter said. “I was trying to tell you earlier before Dr. Cho came up. You probably thought it was really rude, and I hope I didn’t offend you.”

Tony huffed. “You didn’t offend me.”

The relief was clear on Peter’s face. “Good, yeah, because I wasn’t like trying to insinuate you had anxiety like me, or anything. Obviously you don’t need me diagnosing you or blabbering on about my problems. Sticking my nose in your business asking about your birthday and stuff.”

Tony had to laugh. Peter could stick his nose in whatever business he wanted to. It was even more amusing because Peter was right on the money; he did have anxiety, and he had made it even more obvious by getting the shakes over nothing. “Don’t sweat it, kid. If I had a problem with you, you’d know it.”

“That being said,” Tony continued. “You don’t need to run away from me.”

Peter adjusted his glasses. “I can’t run very fast anyways.”

Tony pretended that he didn’t realize Peter was totally yanking his chain. As if he couldn’t run fast. Tony knew from experience that Peter could run fast and far.

“That’s good. You’re easier to catch, then.”

Peter nodded, then stood there fidgeting, probably waiting to be dismissed now that Tony had instructed him not to be running off.

“I’ll leave you to Ned, then.” Tony gestured vaguely. “I’m sure he’s missing you.”

“Yeah,” Peter breathed. “Totally.”

Peter made no move to leave, though, and Tony took that as a good sign.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Peter furrowed his brows. “I know I just said I didn’t want to be nosy, but I don’t know. I can’t help it, sir. Is there anything I can do?”

Tony bit his lip. “I appreciate it, Pete, but you don’t need to worry about me.”

“Someone has to.”

Why did Peter have to be so goddamn sweet? It was debilitating. Tony racked his brain for a response, but he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be witty or earnest. What would Peter respond to best?

“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it?” Peter asked in a small voice. “You’re probably busy, or something.”

Tony didn’t point out that he’d just spent over two hours listening to a ridiculous presentation, so he could stand next to him. That didn’t exactly scream being busy. Then again, it all depended on perspective.

He moved past Peter a few paces. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the elevator.”

“Thank you,” Peter said as he scooted past Tony.

“’Course.”

Tony considered trying to fill the silence with more flirting, maybe asking Peter how he’d enjoyed the presentation, but he didn’t know which route to go. He had psyched himself up, and now he felt like instead of bonding productively, they were dancing around each other.

A part of him knew that he hadn’t won over Peter the first time by being shy and quiet. He’d flaunted his wealth and status; he’d had experience and game, and wasn’t afraid to use it. He’d flirted and teased his way to Peter’s heart and hadn’t held back on the dirty jokes, either. The other part of him knew that he’d kept Peter by being supportive and loving, more mellow. He’d balanced both sides of himself and become the perfect man for Peter.

Now, he felt far away from the confident and seductive man he’d once been. He was all too aware of everything he had to lose, and it turned him into a bumbling mess.

After everything they’d been through together, flirting about glasses and teasing seemed utterly ridiculous, but Tony didn’t know what else to do since he couldn’t be talking to Peter like he knew him; he had to resort to being the Tony Stark he’d been when they’d first met, no matter how inauthentic it felt given how far past that they were.

Tony still hadn’t found anything to say by the time they reached the elevator. Everything he had to say was too much and not enough. He wanted to tell Peter he was sorry and that he loved him and that he missed him. Since he couldn’t say any of that, he settled for a diluted version. “Thanks for sharing your paper with me, by the way,” he said just as the doors started to close.

“Thanks for letting me borrow your glasses.”

Tony grinned unabashedly, and Peter’s playful expression brightened even more. Maybe he hadn’t completely struck out then. There was still hope if Peter was smiling.

There wasn’t enough time to say anything else since the doors had shut.

Tony stood there staring at his warped reflection in the metal of the elevator doors. He considered heading back to the lab, so he and Bruce could pick their discussion back up, but he didn’t feel much like listening to a lecture. Although it would be nice to hear exactly what Peter had said or done to make Bruce so sure that he was interested in him. _He’s got it bad for you._ Tony smiled to himself. It was the best fucking news he’d received in months.


End file.
